Insurgents in one of Thailand’s mostly Muslim southern provinces shot and killed four people, including a child, and wounded another two children on Thursday, police said, days after a deal was reached with the Thai government to establish a safety zone. A decades-old separatist insurgency in the Muslim-majority southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat has claimed more than 6,500 lives since it escalated in 2004, according to independent monitoring group Deep South Watch.
Category: Yala, Thailand
Security tightened at Thai-Malaysia border
SECURITY on the Thailand-Malaysia border has been tightened to deter drug smuggling, after Malaysian authorities captured a suspected member of alleged Lao drug lord Xaysana Keopimpha’s network. The ramped-up security is taking place at the border crossing in Yala’s Betong district, following the arrest of Kamarudin bin Awang and the seizure of money allegedly made from drug-dealing.
Southern flood death toll updated to 41
Chachai Promlert, the director general of the department, told a press conference that the massive flooding affected 1.62 million people in 5,613 villages in 119 districts.
Nearly 1 million swamped by relentless southern deluge
FLOODING in lower Thailand has now expanded to leave 10 of the 15 southern provinces inundated, affecting nearly a million people and claiming 11 lives, according to the Interior Ministry’s Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department. And eight provinces Phetchaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chumphon, Surat Thani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Phatthalung, Ranong and Phang Nga face more heavy rain until today.
Policeman arrested for killing school director
A border patrol policeman has been arrested for the murder of a school director at a grocery shop in Yala’s Muang district on Wednesday afternoon, police said. Pol Col Chamlong Suwalak, chief of Muang district police, said the questioning of Adisak Asae, an employee of the grocery shop who witnessed the killing, led to the arrest of Pol L/Cpl Nirun Im-erb, 26, attached to Border Patrol Police Unit 34, which is based in Tak’s Mae Sot district.