Bangkok: Fifteen vigilantes were killed by a group of gunmen in Yala province in southern Thailand on Tuesday night, police said Wednesday.
Eleven of the vigilantes of Thung Sadao village in Lam Phaya community in the capital district of the southern border province of Yala were found dead at a roadside sentry box, and four others were pronounced dead at hospital, said the police source attached to the National Police headquarters.
About a dozen of unknown gunmen sneaked up in the dark from a rubber plantation behind the sentry box at about 11.20 p.m. on Tuesday and fired on the unaware vigilantes.
They made off with several shotguns and other weapons of the assaulted vigilantes and set fire on tires on the road before leaving the scene.
Authorities were stepping up security measures and hunting for the unknown assailants in the southernmost province.
The attackers, in the province of Yala, also applied explosives and scattered nails on roadways to hold off pursuers.
Colonel Pramote Prom-in, spokesman for the military, said on Wednesday that “12 were being killed at the scene, two a lot more died at the clinic and a single died this early morning”. 5 other folks had been wounded, he explained to AFP information company, incorporating that the attackers took M-16 rifles and shotguns from the checkpoint
“This is possible the get the job done of the insurgents,” he explained to Reuters information company. “This is a person of the major attack in recent periods.”
There was no rapid declare of responsibility, nevertheless, as is frequent with these kinds of attacks.
Key Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha claimed the perpetrators have to “be introduced to justice”, in accordance to Defence Ministry spokesman Kongcheep Tantravanich.
