Brawl erupts between foreign staff and foreign tourists at Phuket restaurant (video)

A violent brawl erupted between three foreign staff members at a restaurant in the Patong area of Phuket, southern Thailand, and five drunk foreign tourists in the early hours of this morning.

Partygoers notified Patong Police Station that a group of foreign tourists and a group of foreign restaurant staff were attacking each other with chairs at Atlas Restaurant on Soi Sansabai.

By the time police arrived, the five tourists had dispersed, but police got to hear the staff’s version of events.

Police spoke to three foreign staff members at Atlas restaurant involved in the brawl including Mohammad Jehad Mohammad Alomari of Jordanian nationality, Abderahman Mohammad El Fawal of Egyptian nationality and Wai Lu Soe of unknown nationality.

The staff said that a group of five drunk foreign tourists came to the restaurant and tried to order food and said they needed the food “quickly.”

According to the staff, the tourists became displeased when they were told they needed to wait in the queue like everyone else.

The tourists hurled verbal abuse and then threw a water bottle at the employees, said the staff, leading to an “altercation” which ended in a physical fight and chair bashing between the two parties. After the fight, the tourists dispersed before police arrived at the scene, said the staff.

In a short clip circulating online, one man is pictured violently attacking another with a metal pole. It’s not clear if he is a staff member or a tourist, or what happened in the moments prior.

Police took photos at the scene to record the incident and are now looking to locate the drunk foreign tourists in the fight so they can interrogate everyone involved and find out the facts.

As of yet, none of the five foreign tourists involved in the brawl have reported anything to the police.