Death toll hits 78 in Thai-Muslim riot

[Lev]

October 27, 2004 - AP
At least 78 people were suffocated or crushed to death after being arrested and packed into police trucks following a riot in Muslim-dominated southern Thailand, officials said on Tuesday.

The announcement dramatically increased the death toll from the latest eruption of violence in Thailand's south to 84. Officials had earlier said that six people were shot dead during the riot on Monday at a police station in Narathiwat province.

Dr Pornthip Rojanasunan, a forensics expert who works for the Justice Ministry, said she and a team of doctors conducted autopsies on 78 bodies at an army camp in Pattani province and found that most had suffocated.

The dead were among some 1,300 people that military officials said were arrested on Monday after the police station riot.

Major Gen. Sinchai Nujsathit, deputy commander of the fourth army, said the victims may have died from suffocation "because we had more than 1,300 people packed into the six-wheel trucks.''

Manit Suthaporn, deputy permanent secretary of the Justice Ministry, said the victims probably suffocated because they were piled on top of each other in the vehicles.

The violence erupted on Monday when about 2,000 Muslim youths demonstrated outside the police station in Takbai district, demanding the release of six detained men.

Police and military forces tried to disperse the crowd with gunshots, water cannons and tear gas. Six people were killed and several injured in the melee, army commander General Pisarn Wattanawongkhiri said on Tuesday.

Islamic leaders accused Thai troops of over-reacting to the police station protest and warned it could trigger an upswing in violence.

"I am in shock,'' Abdulraman Abdulsamad, chairman of the Islamic Council of Narathiwat, told The Associated Press on learning of the suffocation deaths. "I cannot say what going to happen, but I believe that hell will break out.''

Investigators, meanwhile, searched for weapons at the rioting site and in a nearby river, where divers were also looking for bodies.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said 20 pistols, seven assault rifles and three hand grenades were recovered at the scene.

[buksida]

More on that story:

A clash that started early this week between hundreds of Muslim protesters and Thai troops in the country's south - resulting in the deaths of more than 80 people - has delivered a blow to Bangkok's view that the local communities are on its side.

The showdown on Monday that initially led to the deaths of six Muslim demonstrators and wounded an estimated 20 soldiers, police and protesters marked an ominous sign in a region gripped by spiraling violence since early January this year. That climate had worsened by Tuesday evening, when a senior Thai army commander confirmed that 78 Muslim protesters had died of suffocation while sitting for nearly six hours inside packed military trucks waiting to be taken to army camps in the southern province of Pattani, five hours by road from where the demonstrators were arrested. Because of the heat and cramped surroundings, conditions in the truck deteriorated quickly.

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[PeteB]

Another angle on the story:

[PeteB]

A Further update on this story is that Thailand now rates its own section on "The Nausea"

[url] http://www.thenausea.com/thailand.html [/url]

Peter