Thailand and Myanmar launched a joint border patrol on the Moei River on Sunday to counter smuggling and other crimes, the online edition of the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.
The joint patrols are aimed at preventing and suppressing human trafficking, as well as the smuggling of drugs and military-grade weapons across the border, the report quoted a Thai military officer as saying.
The Moei, a tributary of the Thanlwin (Salween) River, forms the border for hundreds of kilometres in Kayin and Kayah states and Tak and Mae Hong Son provinces in Thailand.
The joint patrol was launched with four long-tailed boats on a 14-kilometre stretch of the river upstream from the border towns of Myawaddy in Kayin State and Mae Sot in Thailand’s Tak Province, the newspaper said.
It said the patrol involved troops from the Tatmadaw’s 22nd Light Infantry Division and a Karen Border Guard Force and Thailand’s Mae Sot-based 14th Infantry Regiment and 35th Ranger Regiment as well as provincial and border patrol police.
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