‘Khmers kill 19 in raid’

Press, 11 April 1978, Page 9

‘Khmers kill 19 in raid’

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Soldiers and police have been sent to guard two villages where at least 21 people were killed in raids by a combined force of Thai Communist guerrillas and Cambodian soldiers in north-

: east Thailand on Sunday, the Thai police have said. s The police said that the . 300 Communist raiders . killed 19 villagers in four hours of fighting in the Ban Kruat district of Buriram i province, near Cambodia, on I Sunday. At least two Cambodian

Khmer Rouge soldiers also died in the attack, the most serious launched by Communist forces this year along the Cambodian border.

The raiders retreated into Cambodian territory when Government troops backed by aircraft retaliated, the police said. The Thai Prime Minister (General Kriangsak Chamanand) told reporters: • “The 'casualties were high. We will have to improve our plan in order to cope with any situation and we will have to do something as soon as possible.” He did not elaborate.

General Kriangsak returned last Friday from a visit to China. Cambodia’s most powerful friend. The police said on Sunday that six policemen, four local officials, and seven villagers were killed in the I raid. The charred bodies of two more Thai victims were found later.

Apart from the bodies of two Khmer Rouge soldiers, the severed arm of one of the raiders was also found. It is not known whether the Communist attackers carried off other bodies. Neither Radio Phnom Penh nor the Thai Governjment have commented on (the incident, which followed a recent abduction of 160 villagers by guerrillas from the province. Nearly 200 Thais have been killed in more than 400 clashes between Cambodian and Thai forces since the Communist take-over in .Phnom Penh in 1975.