Thailand's successful fight against HIV/Aids in the early 1990s, which has often earned the Kingdom international praise, has been undermined by a climate of fear in the wake of the government's war on drugs that has driven injecting drug users underground, Human Right Watch said on Monday.

The war, launched in February of last year, has caused the deaths of more than 2,000 people and drove countless drug users into hiding and away from what few services exist to protect them from HIV, said Joanne Csete, director of HIV/Aids programmes.

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Bangkok-based diplomats yesterday asked Thailand to verify the number of deaths caused by the government's crackdown on narcotics, since they found the 1,000-odd killings in one month alarming, diplomatic sources said.

"We were told previously that the number of drug-related killings was on average 5,000 per annum, but we are surprised that more than 1,000 people were killed in just one month," said an Asian diplomat on condition of anonymity.

The verification of the killings was sought at a briefing on the government's war on drugs at the Foreign Ministry yesterday.

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