Violence is expected to increase in December in the Far South
Although the rate of violent incidents in the Deep South as stabilized, there is a tendency that violence will increase in the month of December.
For the first ten days of December, there were two major violent incidents in which altogether nine people, including five soldiers and four civilians, were killed.
On December 3, sevenThai men went to a mangrove forest in Ban Karena , Tambon Bang Khao, Pattani’s Nong Chik district to hunt for fiddler crabs. As the crab hunters disembarked from a pick-up truck heading for the mangrove forest, six suspected insurgents, riding on three motorcycles who had trailed them unnoticed opened fire with M16 assault rifles and pistols. Four crab hunters were killed and three escaped. Then the insurgents drove their truck away.
Two of the survivors managed to report the incident to the police but the third howeverwent missing.
The other incident occurred on December 11 when an army truck carrying a group of soldiers on their way from Ingkayuth barrack in Nong Chik district to replace troops in Kapor district was struck by a powerful roadside bomb. The blast killed five soliders on board and wounded 14 others, four of them seriously.
It was reported that the insurgents who had laid in wait about 100 metres from Ban Makor school detonated the bomb buried under the road as the truck passed by.
Informed security sources said that the two major incidents took place after the Barisan Revolusi Nasional separatist group announced that it would suspend peace talks with the government if its five demands were not approved by the parliament.
The followings are the statistics of violent incidents, death toll and injuries for the months of June until November: June, 71 incidents, 35 deaths, 82 injured; July, 42 incidents, 20 dead and 58 injured; August, 84 incidents, 36 dead and 125 injured; September, 37 incidents, 33 dead and 35 injured; October, 52 incidents, 35 dead and 72 injured; November, 53 incidents, 48 dead and 72 injured.
The statistics for the past ten years since January 2004 are as follows: 5,351 deaths which are breaking down into 2,956 Muslims, 2,264 Buddhists and 131 whose religious faiths are unknown. The total number of injured was registered at 9,883, including 6,261 Buddhists and 3,119 Muslims.