Protection given to schools in Thai far South

NARATHIWAT, November 27 (TNA) - More intensified protection is now provided to schools, educational personnel and students in Thailand's violence-plagued far South by local security forces, after last week’s killing of a school director by suspected insurgents prompting over 330 schools in Pattani province to have been temporarily closed. In nearby Narathiwat Province, local officials said on Tuesday, as all the 369 primary schools in the province have remained opened, combined government security forces have boosted protection measures at and surrounding local schools and more checkpoints have also been set up on sensitive roads. In Pattani, all 332 primary schools outside the Mueang municipality have been closed since November 23, a day after the 51-year-old female director of a school in Nong Chik district was gunned down by suspected insurgents. The schools plan to reopen next Monday. The Federation of Southern Border Provinces Teachers has urged schools in neighbouring Yala and Narathiwat provinces to consider on the temporary closure as well; while requesting government security agencies to review and to improve protection to teachers in the troubled region. Since early this month, two educational officials in the Thai deep South have been shot dead by suspected insurgents and two others were wounded. In Pattani alone, 66 teachers have been killed and 46 others were wounded since violence erupted in the region in January 2004. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the southernmost Thai region over almost the past nine years, mostly in drive-by shootings and bombings. (TNA)