Thai schools claose after teachers killed

More than 300 schools in Thailand will close on Monday in response to increasingly vicious attacks by suspected Muslim insurgents against teachers and schools.

The closure affects all primary and secondary schools in the southern province of Pattani, where two teachers were shot and killed by suspected insurgents in the past two days.

In one of the killings, attackers shot a school principal yesterday, and then set his body on fire.

“Teachers can’t bear what has happened,” said Bunsom Thongsriprai, president of Teachers’ Association in Pattani. “They are paranoid, worried and afraid.”

Bunsom said that Pattani’s 336 public schools would reopen when teachers felt safe.

More than 1,800 people have died from violence in Thailand’s three southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces – Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat – since an Islamic insurgency flared up in January 2004.

On Thursday, 96 schools across Yala were ordered closed as a safety precaution after a school was burned down on Wednesday in broad daylight.