A mass shooting and knife attack at a daycare center in northeast Thailand Thursday afternoon left more than 30 people dead, including children, police said. The gunman, believed to be a former police officer, took his own life, according to authorities.
The confirmed deaths include at least 23 children, two teachers, and a police officer. The shooting happened in the province of Nongbua Lamphu, around 300 miles northeast of the capital of Bangkok. According to Thai media reports, the gunman fled the building after the attack.
A manhunt was underway for the suspect before officials confirmed he killed himself. He also reportedly killed his wife and child before the attack. “The shooter came in around lunchtime and shot four or five officials at the child care center first,” a local official named Jidapa Boonsom told Reuters.
Witnesses described a scene of terror inside the Child Development Center Uthaisawan, as the attacker shot and stabbed more than 20 children, some as young as 2, and fatally stabbed a teacher who was eight months pregnant.
The gunman was identified as Panya Kamrab, 34, a former corporal who was fired from the police force after being arrested with methamphetamine on him, according to the Royal Thai Police. After attacking the child-care facility, he shot at people as he drove away, said Major Gen. Paisan Leusomboon, a regional police spokesman.
Thailand, a majority Buddhist country of about 69 million, has some of Asia’s highest rates of gun ownership and gun homicide, although the levels are far lower than those in the United States. The toll in Thursday’s massacre surpassed that of an attack in 2020, when a soldier armed with an assault rifle killed at least 29 people at a Thai shopping mall.
The attack occurred in rural Nong Bua Lamphu Province, one of the poorest pockets of Thailand, where life revolves around agriculture and is governed by the harsh annual fluctuation between drought and floods.
