Photo: Reuters / copyright
At least 34 people -among them 23 children- have died after a former police officer opened fire at a kindergarten in Thailand, as confirmed by security sources in the country.
The attack took place in the province of Nong Bua Lamphu, in the northeast of the country. The aggressor killed then to his family and committed suicide.
The attacker, who the police identified as Panya Kamrab, of 34 years, entered the daycare center and indiscriminately shot and stabbed children and adults before fleeing. At the moment, the motives for the attack are not known. attack.
Apparently, the former agent had been fired last year for drug use, according to the chain of Thai television “Thai PBS”.
The police assure that the aggressor fled in a white Toyota van with Thai license plates.
Among the victims there are at least 23 children, according to a Nong province security forces official Bua Lamphu to the AFP agency.
The most s young is only two years old. There’s also 12 injured.
At the time of the attack, in the nursery there were some children. Kamrab arrived at the compound after lunchtime and began to get nervous when he did not find his son there, according to the police.
First he opened fire “against four or five nursery officers”, according to a witness who worked nearby, Jidapa Boonsom, to the Reuters agency. One of the victims is a school worker who was eight months pregnant.
“At first people thought it was fireworks,” Bonsoom said. The assailant then apparently entered a room where the children were sleeping.
Shortly afterwards, Kamrab got into his truck and charged with the vehicle against a group of pedestrians.
“He was trying to collide with others on the highway. He rammed into a motorcycle and two people were injured. I had to speed up to get away from him,” another witness, Paweena Purichan, told AFP, describing how the attacker, known to her in the area for his drug addiction, was driving erratically.
The Prime Minister of Thailand, Prayuth Chan -ocha, sent his condolences to the victims and their families of this event that he has described as “shocking”.
Mass shootings are rare in Thailand. In 2020, a soldier killed 21 people and injured several dozen more in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima.
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