At least six dead, several injured after student opens fire at high school in Thailand
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At least six people are dead, including a teacher, and several others have been injured after a student opened fire at a Thai high school north of Bangkok.
The shooter, who police say has been identified as a student enrolled at the school, is also dead.
An injured child is carried on a stretcher after a school shooting in Thailand. AP via AP
An injured child is carried on a stretcher outside a school where deaths and injuries were reported. AP via AP
The school has been identified as the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, a well-known secondary school.
At least 15 people are injured, including two people in a critical condition.
Photos and videos from onlookers show students rushing from the school as emergency services arrive.
A witness told reporters that students hid inside a classroom while they heard gunshots from another building before police officers knocked on the door and cleared a way for them to leave the building.
About an hour after the shooting, people stood outside the school comforting one another and police and first responders walked around inside the school.
Authorities gave conflicting information on the casualties that could not immediately be reconciled.
Trairong told news broadcaster Channel 3 the shooter was being hospitalised in serious condition and 15 others were injured, with two in critical condition. He said three teachers and three students were killed.
Health Minister Pattana Promphat said 22 people were injured with nine in critical condition. Some were injured from causes such as falls, and it wasn’t clear how many were shot.
Deputy Interior Minister Polapee Suwunchwee told reporters at the scene that five teachers died and that the shooter killed his two grandparents at home before going to the school. He also said the shooter died at a hospital.
Trairong said the motive was still being investigated. He said the gun was believed to have been taken from a member of the student’s family.
Students cry after a shooting at the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, north of Bangkok. AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
A schoolgirl is comforted outside the school. AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
The Debsirin Nonthaburi School has about 3000 enrolled students and 147 teachers, according to files lodged with local authorities.
Gun ownership in Thailand is relatively high compared with other countries in South-East Asia.
There were more than 10.3 million civilian owned firearms in Thailand, or about 15 guns for every 100 people, according to 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS).
Thailand ranks as the Southeast Asian country with the second-highest gun homicides after the Philippines, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease database.
A crowd gathers outside a school where deaths and injuries were reported after a shooting in Thailand’s Nonthaburi province. AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit
In February, a teacher died and a student was wounded in southern Thailand’s Hat Yai district after a gunman opened fire at a school.
In 2022, 36 people were killed, 24 of them children, in a massacre at a child care centre in the northeast, believed to be the country’s deadliest incident of its kind.
With CNN and Associated Press
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