Residents evacuate area after Lumpini police station hit by grenades; casualties rise

BANGKOK, May 16 (TNA) — Many residents in areas adjacent to a grenade-battered Bangkok police station have abandoned their homes after assailants fired grenades at Lumpini police station.

Unidentified assailants late Saturday fired eight M79 grenades into the area around the Lumpini police station, destroying police vehicles parked at the station.

One grenade lobbed into a police flat behind the police station, wounding one police officer and his wife, a mother with her son, and a relative.

Shortly after the incident, police evacuated their families to another location, while local residents in the homes and slum housing behind the police station had earlier evacuated their homes on fears of their safety.

Meanwhile, two unidentified men hurled a grenade at Bangkok Bank’s Kae Rai branch in suburban Nonthaburi province Saturday night, shattered entrance area, but no casualties were reported.

Tensions in the Thai capital remained high Sunday as protesters of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) confronted army troops on the Thai capital’s key business roads.

Meanwhile, casualties in clashes between anti-government protesters and security officials has risen to 24 killed and 222 wounded since Friday. Of the total wounded, 90 remained hospitalised, officials said.

Canadian photojournalist Nelson Rand, shot and seriously wounded Friday, was transferred from Chulalongkorn Hospital to nearby BNH Hospital.

Three other wounded foreigners — one Polish, one Liberian and one Myanmar national — were released by their medical teams to return home after their conditions had improved. (TNA)