March 28, 2012
BANGKOK (AFP) - At least seven people including six Myanmar illegal migrant workers were killed in Thailand Wednesday after their pickup plunged into a canal trying to avoid a police checkpoint, police said.
The accident occurred in Ban Phreak district of Ayutthaya province, around 75 kilometres (50 miles) north of Bangkok.
Two men, including the Thai driver, and five women were killed and 12 other people injured as the driver attempted to avoid a checkpoint by diverting onto a secondary road, police said.
"The driver lost control on a sharp curve and the car plunged into an irrigation canal," Colonel Patcharakorn Chanwongsa, superintendent of Ban Phreak police station, told AFP.
"One of 12 injured is in critical condition," he said.
Patcharakorn said police knew they were Myanmar illegal migrants after survivors told them.
There are around two million Myanmar migrants in Thailand, legal and illegal, many of whom fled ethnic conflict zones in their homeland.
Thailand's economy relies on migrant workers from its poorer neighbours Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
