Blasts rock Thailand, injure 60
pattani — More than 60 people including children were injured on Tuesday when a car bomb exploded outside a supermarket in Thailand’s insurgency-plagued south, police said, the largest attack for months on a civilian target there.
The Muslim-majority border region has seethed with violence for over a decade as ethnic Malay insurgents battle the Buddhist-majority state for more autonomy.
The latest attack hit the town of Pattani around 2pm with two bombs going off outside the Big C, a busy supermarket near the town centre.
The first device was packed inside a motorcycle in the car park, officers said, spreading panic among shoppers. “The second blast was a car bomb,” Pattani police commander Major General Thanongsak Wangsupa said.
Deputy national police spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen told
6,800
lives have been claimed by near-daily shooting and bomb attacks since 2004
reporters 51 people were injured by the blasts, four of them seriously. Video posted by a witness on Twitter showed the second blast detonate in a large fireball, sending bystanders running for cover.
Police were on the scene and appeared to be encouraging people to move back when the second blast struck. In heavy rain forensic officers started searching through the twisted remains of the car looking for clues, an AFP photographer said.
A large swathe of the supermarket storefront had been blown away, replaced by a twisted mess of charred metal. “I heard a very loud explosion,” a resident who lives close to the supermarket told AFP, requesting anonymity.
“Minutes after that, I heard the sirens of rescue cars and ambulances. I feel bad about it... it happened at a place where people go to buy things.”
Near-daily shootings and bomb attacks have claimed more than 6,800 lives since 2004, with both sides accused of rights abuses.
The simmering insurgency plays out far from Thailand’s popular tourist resorts and receives little international attention as a result.
The UN children’s agency condemned those behind the blasts for targeting an area where youngsters would be present. “No child’s life should ever be put at risk in this way. This is wholly unacceptable,” said Unicef ’s Thailand representative Thomas Davin. —