February 25, 2008
CHIANG RAI, Thailand - Three Chinese marine police have been injured in a gunfight with Myanmar drug traffickers in the notorious Golden Triangle along the Mekong river, Thai officials said Monday.
The Chinese boat was patrolling the river where it flows between Myanmar and Laos, under a regional cooperation scheme aimed at fighting drug trafficking in an area renowned for opium and now a major producer of amphetamines, according to AFP.
A second boat carrying half a dozen suspected drug traffickers opened fire as it approached the Chinese vessel, Thai navy officials said.
As the boats neared, the Myanmar gang boarded the Chinese craft, shooting and stabbing some of the six police before jumping back on their own vessel to escape, said Commander Pakorn Pothichai of the Thai Navy Mission for the Mekong.
The clash lasted about five minutes. The three wounded Chinese police have been hospitalised in the northern Thai town of Chiang Rai, he added.
Pakorn said the gang was believed to be working to protect a drugs shipment on the river.
"Chinese officials apparently had a tip-off of about the drugs delivery, so the drug traffickers were trying to stop them," he said.
Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium after Afghanistan.
According to UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium production in Myanmar was up 46 percent on the previous year.
Several hundred million amphetamine tablets are produced in Myanmar every year and shipped by gangs to neighbouring China and Thailand.
