Updated on
Summary
At least 3 people have been killed and more than 45 people were injured after bombs were set off in Bangkok's financial district during a rally by people opposed to anti-government demonstrations in central Bangkok.One explosion hit outside the headquarters of Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand's biggest agribusiness group. Another landed near the Dusit Thani Hotel. Nearly a dozen ambulances streamed into the area. Many of the victims were wounded by shrapnel. The grenades were fired in an area where about 500 pro-government protesters had gathered, Sansern said. Not far from the explosions, tens of thousands of red-shirted supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra have fortified their redoubt in a Bangkok commercial district with home-made barricades, expecting the army to evict them any time. After the blasts, troops blocked off roads with razor wire and trained their guns in the air looking to rooftops and an overhead railway system. Red shirt leaders say another attempt to evict them would be futile. They say they will only leave Bangkok when Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announces early elections. Some 20,000 red shirts have occupied a roughly 3 square-km area of central Bangkok, setting up a self-contained village in an upscale shopping and hotel area. Ambulance and medical staff were quickly on the scene after several explosives were set off in the main financial district of Silom Road in central Bangkok. Several thousand people opposing the six-weeks of anti-government protests were rallying less than 100 meters from fortified anti-government barricades. There were also reports of smaller explosives closer to an anti-government rally site.
