Almost 80 people died of suffocation in southern Thailand while being taken to detention at a military barracks after a violent demonstration, a justice ministry official said Tuesday. Only six people were previously believed to have been killed in the violence in the Muslim-dominated region on Monday, but the official said 78 others later died of suffocation. "We found no wounds on their bodies," the official, Manit Sutaporn, told a news conference in Pattani, a provincial capital 700 miles south of Bangkok. He said the 78 victims were among hundreds arrested after the 1,500-strong rally was dispersed from outside a police station in Narathiwat province. The deaths appear to have occurred while the men were being taken in trucks to a military barracks in Pattani, a journey that took five hours, Major General Sinchai Nutsatit told the news conference. | Closed trucks, hot day, happens all the time along the US-Mexican border to people being smuggled in. |
Army spokesman Akom Pongprom confirmed the toll and cause of death as suffocation. He said the bodies were being kept at the barracks. Troops and police fired live rounds, as well as water cannon and teargas, during a six-hour standoff Monday with the crowd of Muslims demanding the release of six villagers accused of handing over government-issue shotguns to militants. Shots were also fired from the crowd, officials said, adding that some of the protesters were under the influence of drugs or were frail because of fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Six protesters were killed in the violence, and 20 people injured. "This is typical," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters when asked about accounts of scores dead. "It's about bodies made weak from fasting. Nobody hurt them." | He doesn't seem too broken up over it. Seething expected from islamic world in 5..4..3.. |
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