Injured Karen refugees flee to Thailand

Footage released by Thailand's defense ministry shows border soldiers carrying ethnic Karen refugees on stretchers after receiving them at a border river, then transporting them to a nearby hospital for treatment.

About a dozen people fleeing military air strikes in Myanmar were allowed to cross into a Thai border village on Tuesday to receive medical treatment, according to a Reuters witness.

A local Thai official in the border region, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the Thai army was still sending back most of those fleeing Myanmar because it had deemed the situation over the border to be safe.

Heavy clashes erupted on the weekend near the Thai border between the army and fighters from Myanmar's oldest ethnic minority force, the Karen National Union (KNU), which has denounced the coup.