Bangkok Thailand Situation update – worsening
Government supporters in Thailand converged on Bangkok Sunday, where rival protestors have taken control of the city’s two airports and forced the prime minister to rule from afar.
The army or Thailand’s king have not yet stepped in to resolve the growing crisis. They also haven’t fully backed Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat either.
The closing of the airports has left about 100,000 travellers stranded and crippled Thailand’s tourism industry.
Explosions in Bangkok wounded 51 people Sunday, adding to the sense that the political violence has turned the country into a de facto state of anarchy.
The first explosion occurred after a grenade landed on a tent at Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat’s compound, which has been occupied by protesters since August.
Nine of the 49 people injured in that attack have been hospitalized, according to Surachet Sathitniramai of the Narenthorn Medical Center.
Four of the hospitalized were in serious condition.
Twenty minutes after the attack on the prime minister’s compound, two explosions hit a government television station. No injuries were reported in those incidents, said Suriyasai Katasiya, a spokesperson for the protesters.
Two people were also wounded in a pre-dawn explosion on a road that runs by the main entrance to Bangkok’s Don Muang domestic airport.
Tensions are running high between Thai law enforcement officials and anti-government protesters, who have occupied both the Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi airports.
see also Thai protesters at Bangkok’s international airport updates
Travellers have been stranded in Bangkok after an anti-government group known as the People’s Alliance for Democracy overran the Suvarnabhumi airport, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.
The group charges that Somchai is a puppet of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown in a 2006 military coup. Thaksin fled Thailand rather than face corruption charges.
Somchai has been running his government out of the northern city of Chiang Mai since the protest group took over his office compound.
Somchai’s supporters held a rally in support of their leader in downtown Bangkok Sunday and have vowed to stay in the city overnight.
Thailand’s national deputy policy chief, Lt. Gen. Pongpat Pongjaroen, said Sunday that law enforcement officials are negotiating with protesters to end hostilities.
However, a leader of the protest group refuted that claim.
