(Reuters) – About 200 Myanmar soldiers retreated on Thursday to a bridge linking the border town of Myawaddy to Thailand after a days-long attack in the area by anti-junta rebels, according to a spokesman for the armed ethnic group and media locals.
Myanmar’s military government is fighting armed rebel groups on several fronts and has suffered a series of defeats in border areas.
The retreat of junta troops to Myawaddy, which is adjacent to Mae Sot in Thailand, signals the potential loss of another important border trading outpost that has direct highway access to parts of central Myanmar.
On Thursday, about 200 fleeing soldiers gathered at the border crossing with Thailand, said Saw Taw Nee, spokesman for the Karen National Union (KNU), an anti-junta group leading the assault on Myawaddy.
Local news outlet Khit Thit reported that Thai authorities were in talks with the soldiers about whether to grant them refuge.
A spokesperson for Myanmar’s junta did not respond to requests for comment.
The KNU said last week that its troops had attacked a junta camp near Myawaddy, forcing around 600 security personnel and their families to surrender.
Border crossings in the area were open to civilians entering Thailand from Myanmar in large numbers, said police Colonel Borwornphop Soontornlekha, superintendent of immigration in Thailand’s Tak province, where Mae Sot is located.
“Usually there are around 2,000 people entering Mae Sot from Myawaddy every day, but for the last three days the number has been almost 4,000 per day,” Borwornphop told Reuters.
The Thai military has beefed up security on its side of the border, deploying military vehicles equipped with roof-mounted machine guns.
At least 2,000 people have been displaced in Myanmar by the latest round of fighting between rebels and the military, according to civil society group Karen Peace Support Network.
Myanmar’s military, which seized power in a 2021 coup after ousting an elected civilian government, has faced a series of setbacks against a loose alliance of ethnic rebel groups and a civilian militia movement .