RATCHABURI, Thailand -- Myanmar rebels armed with guns and grenades crossed into Thailand and seized a hospital Monday, taking an estimated 800 people hostage and demanding doctors treat injured soldiers.
The rebels, believed to be from God's Army, a Myanmar insurgent group led by 12-year-old twin boys, have been under sustained attack by Myanmar troops for a week at their mountain base near the border. The violence has driven at least 1,000 minority Karen refugees into neighboring Thailand.Interior Minister Sanan Kachornprasart, directing negotiations to end the siege in the western town of Ratchaburi, said the rebels were demanding Thai doctors treat their wounded. They also wanted Thailand to give refuge to their estimated 200 fighters and stop shelling across the border into Myanmar.
No one was reported to have been harmed, but the rebels tied explosives to the hospital gates and laid mines around the area.
Kachornprasart and Thai army commander Gen. Surayud Chulanond both identified the captors as belonging to the God's Army rebel group, but the rebels did not identify themselves in a statement of demands.
Chulanond said Thailand would meet demands to shelter people fleeing the fighting and treat injured rebels in Thai hospitals. Rebels will also be allowed to take shelter in Thailand, but only if they surrender their weapons.
Dr. Kawat Suntrajarn, deputy permanent secretary at the Public Health Ministry, said 200 medical staff and 600 patients were being held inside the sprawling hospital compound.
The rebels were in control of the administration and emergency room buildings, leaving about eight buildings outside their direct control. It was unknown how many people they were holding directly at gunpoint.
Roughly 100 people escaped. About 15 were released -- some in exchange for food -- including elderly patients, a pregnant woman and a small boy. Many more managed to slip out of the sprawling hospital compound.
A Thai television cameraman allowed inside took footage showing scores of people looking frightened and sitting on rows of benches. A masked man spoke into a mobile telephone in one hand and brandished an assault rifle in the other.
It appeared that the rebels were mostly in the general and emergency wards, and that treatment of patients was still taking place.
Early today, the raiders hijacked a bus near the border and forced the driver to take them 45 miles to downtown Ratchaburi, where they captured the hospital, said Boonmak Sirinavakul, the local member of parliament.
Boonmak said the rebels had requested two helicopters, although it was unclear where they wanted to fly to.
A nurse interviewed on a mobile telephone by the ITV television network said the group first captured doctors and nurses, holding guns to their heads and keeping them in the emergency room. They were later allowed to move around.
Some medical personnel tried changing into plain clothes to avoid capture, said the nurse, who was not identified.
It was unknown if the rebels included the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors, five dissidents who seized Myanmar's embassy Oct. 1 in Bangkok, taking about 40 hostages.
The hostages were released unharmed a day later in a deal that allowed the students to go free. The deal angered Myanmar's military government, which closed its border with Thailand for two months. Thailand has since vowed to arrest the students, and has been screening recent refugees to find them.
The dissidents have hidden out with God's Army, composed mostly of ethnic Karens and led by Johnny and Luther Htoo, who are thought to have mystical powers in battle that render them invincible.
The Associated Press interviewed the twins and members of the Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors in December at their jungle base, and they expressed a deep hatred of the Myanmar army, accused of waging scorched-earth policies to subdue the Karen.
The students said they were fighting for democracy in their homeland, also known as Burma, ruled by military dictators since 1962. The Karens have been fighting for more autonomy for more than 50 years.
Like most Karens, God's Army are Christians in a predominantly Buddhist country. The twins don't allow fighting, swearing, drugs or alcohol.