At least nine villagers were gunned down as they slept on Wednesday by suspected Islamic militants in southern Thailand, officials said, in an escalation of attacks in the troubled Muslim-majority region.
“There are nine villagers shot dead and another nine wounded,” said Pracha Tearat, governor of Narathiwat province where the attack occurred, adding that the wounded have been hospitalised and were out of danger.
The deaths bring to 18 the number of people killed in the last week.
An unknown number of militants used grenades and automatic weapons to attack three homes in Ra Ngae district’s Bo-Ngo village early on Wednesday morning, killing all of those in one of the houses, including an infant, witnesses said.
At daybreak the dead, all members of the same family, remained sprawled on the floor of their home.
The wounded were sleeping in the other two houses when the attack occurred.
Pracha said the victims were targeted because they had cooperated with the government in its bid to quell an Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand that has been raging for more than 22 months.
“It’s the really brutal work of militants. They kill everyone if they learn that those people take sides with the government,” he said.
The area where the attack took place is known as a hotbed of extremism where frequent militant attacks occur.
After the attack about 50 people sealed off the area, refusing to allow journalists and security forces to enter the village, witnesses said.
An Agence France Presse journalist and photographer, as well another television reporter, were detained by angry villagers after they went to investigate the killings but have since been let go.
It’s unclear if security forces have entered the village.
More than 1 000 people have been killed in violence in Thailand’s three southern Muslim majority provinces since January 2004.
Authorities variously blame the daily attacks in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces on Islamic separatist militants, organised criminals or local corruption.
On Tuesday village defence volunteer Suwan Kaoket was gunned down in Narathiwat province, police said. Two suspected militants on a motorbike stopped to ask directions from the victim, who was working in a rice field, before firing three bullets into him.
On Sunday and Monday, three Buddhist villagers suspected by militants of collaborating with the government were killed in attacks in Pattani province, police said, while three Muslims, including a teacher and former village chief, were killed over the weekend.
Two more Buddhists died in attacks on Wednesday in Narathiwat province.
Thailand’s military said Monday it would offer weapons training to up to 20 000 residents in the southern provinces as it struggles to control the insurgency, which some senior military officials have admitted they can do little about.
“Many of them will be trained in how to use weapons so that they can defend themselves and their villages,” said the supreme commander of the armed forces, General Ruengroj Mahasaranond.
“At the same time we can use them as government informants,” he added.
The military already has a network of volunteers who help security forces defend villages, as well as schools, temples and other public buildings.
Authorities on Tuesday also began blocking phone signals in the south to curb militant bombings. – AFP