Schools in Thai far South closed, after 158th teacher slain

BANGKOK, January 25 (TNA) - All schools in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala were closed on Friday, in the wake of a fatal shooting of a teacher in Narathiwat on January 23, the 158th teacher victim in the violence-plagued Thai far South since early 2004. The one-day closure of all schools in the Thai far South was a resolution of a teachers' network in the three southern border provinces after a meeting on Thursday, one day after the death of a Thai-Muslim teacher of Baan Tanyong School in Narathiwat in the brutal shooting at the school's canteen. Resolving that all schools in the three southernmost Thai provinces be re-opened on January 28, the teachers' network also called on local security forces to quickly track down four gunmen who carried out Wednesday's attack and to find out measures to ensure the safety of teachers and students in the insurgency-plagued region. One of the four armed attackers who pretended to be a student's father entered the premises of Baan Tanyong School in Narathiwat's Bacho District and shot dead the teacher victem, Chonlathee Charoenchon at his head, amid fellow teachers and students who were eating lunch at the scene, the school's canteen. Police are questioning witnesses and hunting down the four suspects who are initially assumed to be the same group of attackers who killed a Thai-Muslim police officer in Narathiwat last year. (TNA)