Kampucheans pour into Thailand

Press, 24 November 1979, Page 9

Kampucheans pour into Thailand

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Thousands more Kampuchean refugees in trucks, buses, or on foot poured into Thailand yesterday or their way to what may become one of the biggest refugee camps in the world. Refugee officials at the border said more than 500 C people had crossed in a day to join the first 5000 taken to the Khao-Dang camp some 270 km east of Bangkok. Carrying their meagre possessions, the refugees from among some 430,000 people who have fled their famine-ravaged country tc that section of the Thai border entered the site aftei medical checks. The sick and very old arrived in buses whose roofs were piled high with bamand thatch to be used tc build shelters. Refugee officials said the huts in which the refugees lived in huge sprawling shanty towns along the frontier had had to be taker down and moved with them

'because of a shortage of | bamboo and thatch. I Able-bodied refugees would build their own shelI ters, they said. i The refugees are expected; to cross the border at a rate' ■ of about 800 a day. How many of the 430,000! - would cross was uncertain. I Leaders of the Khmer (Serei (“Free Khmer”) guer-j j'rillas controlling the area were unhappy at the prosipect of the young and able- < bodied leaving. One Khmer Serei leader complained to Reuters: “We cannot fight the Vietnamese i without the people.” J Military sources said they expected most of the people . to cross, if not immediately, jthen when the Vietnameseped forces of the Phnom I Penh Administration intensified their military operlations. Khmer Serei leaders inj lone of the vast encamp-1 said they had received! j information that the Phnom I Penh forces planned to paunch an attack next I month. ; The military sources said

that the Vietnamese-led forces were now concentrating on operations fur-! ther south against Khmer! Rouge guerrillas loyal to the; ■deposed Prime Minister, Pol -Pot, ousted by the Vietnamese last January. They said tens of thous-i ■ ands of Kampucheans i strung out along the border (south of the eastern frontier; town of Aranyaprathet were controlled by the Khmer, Rouge and could cross into Thailand at any time. A military spokesman told! a news conference that more than 568,000 Kampucheans') were huddled along the border seeking food and safety! ; from the fighting. Most were north of Aranyaprathet and starting to: move to the Khao-Dang I camp, which may eventually: cover 5 sq. km and hold: more than 200,000 people, j The camp is officially) ■ termed a temporary transit: (centre, and plans call for the! people to be moved to more) permanent camps as soon as) possible. About six such! camps are under construe-' tion.