30,000 Cambodians Fleeing to Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand — Heavy fighting between Cambodian government troops and Khmer Rouge guerrillas sent tens of thousands of Cambodians fleeing toward Thailand Friday.

About 30,000 refugees were massed at the border, a Thai military spokesman said on condition of anonymity. He said the U.N. refugee agency will help in providing shelter for the refugees, as it has in the past.

Thailand has frequently provided haven to Cambodians of various factions in the fighting that has racked its Southeast Asian neighbor for two decades.

This time, the refugees are mostly relatives and other civilians allied with the Khmer Rouge, which for weeks have been under heavy attack by government troops.

Some 7,500 other Cambodians displaced by the fighting, mostly women and children, sought refuge within their own country at a government-run camp, the U.N. World Food Program said. They joined nearly 3,000 refugees who arrived last month at the O Bai Tap camp, 30 miles from the fighting.

The refugee crisis comes just four days after the U.N. refugee agency and the Thai and Cambodian governments agreed to work together to repatriate 64,000 refugees already in Thailand so they could participate in July elections.

The elections are part of an internationally mediated settlement of the power struggle between Cambodian strongman Hun Sen and the co-premier he ousted in a bloody July coup, Prince Norodom Ranariddh.

Ranariddh’s supporters fled to northern Cambodia where, aided in part by the Khmer Rouge, they took up arms against Hun Sen troops.

Under international pressure, Hun Sen agreed to allow Ranariddh, who is living in exile in Thailand, to take part in the elections if he would cut ties to the Khmer Rouge.

The 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime was responsible for the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians.