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| Southeast Asia |
| Wave of bloodshed forces school closings across southern Thailand |
| 2007-11-07 |
| Sixty-one schools in Narathiwat province closed indefinitely on Wednesday morning after two teachers were murdered amidst a heavy uptick in violence and casualties in the South. Suwatchai Ekthananond, director of Prachapattana School, and Montri Jarong, a teacher of the same school, were shot dead by gunmen on motorcycle while they were leaving the school for their homes on Tuesday. Three explosive experts died instantly when a bomb they were attempting to defuse placed on a bridge exploded in Panare district of Pattani this morning. A fourth soldier was injured in the blast. A mine planted on a road near a village in tambon Talingchan of YalaÂ’s Bannang Sata district went off this morning after being activated by a patrol vehicle. The explosion wounded killed one soldier and wounded two other troops and three villagers passing by on a motorcycle. One police officer was killed and two others wounded in a bomb explosion in PattaniÂ’s Panare district on Wednesday afternoon. The incident took place when the policemen were examining an object left on a bridge in tambon Ban Klang. A bomb exploded yesterday at a busy market, wounding 28 people, seven of them seriously, while two public school teachers were shot dead in next-door Narathiwat. The homemade bomb detonated by remote control exploded at a packed food stall in Muang Yala district. Police believed a bomber placed the device under one of the stalls on Monday night and waited until customers packed the market before detonating it. Seven of those hurt were in serious condition, said Pol Lt Col Jeerasit Lomae. In Narathiwat, two public school teachers were murdered, said Pol Lt-Col Thanapol Meechai. At least two assailants hidden in the brush stepped out onto a narrow village road in Rueso district and shot them with pistols while they were riding motorcycles home, he said. The two victims were in a group of six teachers guarded by a village defence volunteer, but they had fallen behind the others, he said. It is normal practice in the South for teachers to have security escorts to and from school. An In Narathiwat, police took a member of an active Mahama Madeng, 26, of the Runda Kumpulan Kecil, and five accomplices allegedly planted the bomb which exploded under the pick-up truck of Pol Sub-Lt Seri Hayeeding, a deputy crime suppression inspector of Tak Bai district on Oct 26, 2005. The officer sustained shrapnel wounds. Meanwhile, relatives of three men apprehended shortly after they left the military-run vocational training programme and returned home have asked the provincial courts in Yala and Pattani for their immediate release. Mayakee Manputae, 23, was arrested by police in Yala on Saturday , while Nisae Hayeetalae, 40, and Abdulroman Dueramae, 51, were apprehended on Sunday in Pattani. The three men were among participants in the army-supervised vocational training programme for individuals with suspected links to the southern The courts in those provinces recently ruled the training was voluntary and participants were free to leave the programme if they wanted to. The three men left the camp and returned home only to be arrested because they were banned from entering Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat and parts of Songkhla where martial law has been imposed. The Pattani provincial court will decide today whether to accept for hearing the relatives' request for the release of Mr Nisae and Mr Abdulroman. The Yala court has set tomorrow for the examining of documentary evidence to determine if the police arrest of Mr Mayakee was legal. |
| Posted by:ryuge |