FAR SOUTH
Post Reporters
A total of 128 teachers, students and education staff have been killed and 213 others wounded in the deep South since the start of the separatist violence there in 2004, said Karun Sakulpradit, head of a regional education inspector-general's office.
He said 296 schools were also torched in the strife-torn region encompassing Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces and four districts of Songkhla.
The figures on school arson were collected from Jan 4, 2004, when the violence broke out in Narathiwat, until June 17. The casualty figures were gathered from Jan 4, 2004, to July 7.
Of the 128 people killed, 29 were school students according to the figures released by the educational collaboration centre under the inspector-general's office.
Mr Karun denied that teachers in many parts of the restive region were seeking transfers following the recent killing of a school director in Yala.
Transfers were normal especially in the lead-up to the end of the current fiscal year in September, he said.
He added that local communities could have done more to help protect teachers in the deep South.
Army chief Anupong Paojinda said that keeping one step ahead of the southern militant groups, as Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej had instructed, was easier said than done.
Gen Anupong was speaking after meeting Mr Samak on southern security policies yesterday.
In Narathiwat, a 15-strong task force sent to inspect a crime scene in Si Sakhon district was lured into a bomb trap but escaped unharmed yesterday.
Police said the force was about to inspect a scene where spent cartridges were found in a village when a homemade bomb blew up.
However, no one was injured in the explosion.
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