The mainly Muslim Rohingya are heavily persecuted in war-torn western Myanmar, and thousands risk their lives each year to try to reach Malaysia or Indonesia through Thailand.

A passing monk found two dead refugees, along with eight survivors - seven of them injured - in a forest in Chumphon province on Oct 17, officers said.

One of the injured refugees died a day later, a hospital staff member told AFP.

The uninjured survivor told police that traffickers had packed 26 people into two vehicles after they had made their way across the Thai-Myanmar border.

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More than 4,000 refugees, most of them Catholics, have entered the Thailand border areas and are "knocking at our front doors, seeking refuge," said Bishop Francis Xavier Vira Arporndratana of Chiang Mai diocese on June 22.

They were provided humanitarian assistance by Chettha Mosikkharat, governor of Mae Hong Son province along with his deputy, officials, and the Red Cross, besides survival kits donated by local people, the Bangkok Post reported.

Chettha said that as director of the Thai-Myanmar border administration centre, he had updated state agencies on the situation.

He reportedly added that Thailand will remain neutral in the conflict, but officials and security agencies will provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.

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The new flare-up between the army and the rebel groups, which also includes Christians, has prompted thousands of villagers in Demoso township in predominantly Christian Kayah State, a mountainous eastern region bordering Thailand, to take shelter in relatives' homes and in forests, according to local sources.

They said at least 3,000 people have fled their homes since March 10 when the fighting increased.

"We heard artillery shelling and gunfire and saw many fleeing villagers taking refuge in relatives' homes," a local resident from Loikaw, the capital city of Kayah State, who did not wish to be named, told UCA News.

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In a segment of a 16-minute video posted online after being filmed from the Myanmar side of the Wa Le River, which separates the two nations, a soldier is seen hacking away at lengths of bamboo laid across the waterway.

One of two Thai soldiers standing on the opposite bank shouts out to the person filming the incident. "What are you filming, [expletive]? Do you want to die" the soldier is heard yelling.

By dismantling the bridge, the group says Thailand's military has closed off an escape route for desperate refugees.

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