By Jason Szep and Ploy Ten Kate
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thousands of Thai protesters refused to leave Bangkok's streets on Sunday despite three days of fighting that has killed 24 people and spiralled into chaotic urban warfare, with both sides calling for reinforcements.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he was considering a curfew for Bangkok, a city of 15 million people known for its nightlife, and vowed to stop the mostly rural and urban poor protesters from toppling his government.
But the protesters remained defiant, continuing to gather and demand the resignation of the British-born, Oxford-educated Abhisit, who is backed by Thailand's royalist elite, a group the demonstrators accuse of subverting democracy.
On Sunday morning, as hundreds gathered on usually congested Rama IV road, one demonstrator was shot in the head by a sniper, and rushed away to hospital, a Reuters witness said.
The streets were tense a day after soldiers fired live rounds at demonstrators who fought back with petrol bombs, rocks and crude homemade rockets in two major areas of the city, as the army tried to isolate a sprawling encampment in central Bangkok occupied by the protesters for six weeks.
"We still have to move forward. We cannot retreat now," Abhisit said in a televised statement on Sunday.
He said Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, in charge of security during the protests, is discussing a possible curfew and other measures during meetings with the military.
The "red shirt" protesters accuse Abhisit and his royalist backers of meddling in the judicial system to bring down previous elected governments and put themselves in power.
Many protest leaders now face terrorism charges that carry a maximum penalty of death, raising the confrontation's stakes.
The protesters, who have adopted red as a protest colour and broadly support former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, set fire to vehicles and hurled rocks at troops who set up razor wire across deserted roads on Saturday in the business district.
Soldiers can shoot if protesters come within 36 metres of army lines, said army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd, adding more soldiers were needed to establish control.
The crisis has paralysed Bangkok, squeezed Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy, scared off tourists and choked investment in one of Asia's most promising emerging markets.
Witnesses describe the bloodshed as largely one-sided, as troops armed with automatic rifles easily dodge projectiles and open fire with automatic weapons. Some protesters have been killed by snipers positioned on the tops of office towers.
No soldiers have been identified in the official tolls that show 24 people killed and 198 wounded.
NEW PROTEST SITE
Several hundred protesters gathered early on Sunday in the working-class Klong Toey district where thousands massed the night before, using a truck as a makeshift stage, in a possible move towards setting up a new protest site. Smoke billowed from walls of burning tyres on a road leading to the area.
Red shirt leader Nattawut Saikua told thousands still hunkered down in their main encampment late on Saturday that reinforcements were coming.
"We have been contacted by leaders in several provinces that they will mobilise to help us pressure the government," he said.
The U.S. Embassy has offered to evacuate families and partners of U.S. government staff based in Bangkok on a voluntary basis, and urged its citizens against travel to Bangkok.
The army is battling to set up a perimeter around the 3.5 sq-km encampment where at least 5,000 people remain, including women and children, behind barricades made of tyres, poles and concrete, topped by razor wire.
"The troops may be making some progress on sealing the area but at a great cost," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, adding rising casualties could weaken Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
"Is the government successfully dispersing the crowd and progressing towards ending the crisis? The answer is no, not so far, and it's a long way to go."
However, there was evidence the government's strategy of starving protesters out of their encampment was beginning to have some effect.
Supplies of food, water and fuel were starting to run thin as the red shirt delivery trucks were being blocked, said one protest leader, Kwanchai Praipanabut, adding they still had enough to hold out for days.
(Additional reporting by Ambika Ahuja and Adrees Latif; Editing by Jerry Norton)
