While deaths are reported almost daily in the southern unrest, most of the victims are men _ soldiers, village heads, workers and more. But there are others affected by the unrest who rarely make the headlines _ the women of the deep South.
ChanakanKiewya,41, and her son Dang recalls thebombblast in Yala which she believes caused her son’s cerebral palsy. LAMPHAIINTATHEP
Some are widowed, some are injured themselves, and others have to tend to wounded husbands and children.
Thousands of them, deprived of their family's breadwinner or their own livelihoods, are left not only without immediate income but also the means to move on with a sustainable life.
One of these women, Chanakan Kiewya, 41, was injured in a 2005 bomb blast in downtown Yala when she was seven months pregnant.
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While she was lucky to survive the explosion, her child was later born with cerebral palsy (CP).
Ms Chanakan said she lost consciousness for several days after the blast and nearly miscarried her child.
"Luckily, the foetus started moving again and I gave birth to a baby boy," she said. "He was like a normal baby until he was six months old.
"By then, he should have been making eye contact and should have been able to hold his head up. It was strange that he wasn't. The doctor told me that my child had abnormalities in the brain caused by CP.
"That shocked me a lot and I started questioning whether the blast was the cause of my child's misfortune.
"However, the doctor hesitated to guarantee that the disorder was a result of the explosion."
Ms Chanakan decided to take her child for chromosome testing, which showed no abnormalities.
"This made it obvious that he was born with CP because of the prenatal trauma caused by the bombing," she said, in tears.
She named her son Dang, which means loud, to remind her of the incident.
Ms Chanakan receives 130,000 baht a year in compensation for the trauma to her child. She has received the payment for three years so far from government agencies who compensate victims of the southern violence, and the payout will continue every year.
"I do not bemoan my fate," she said. "I do my best to raise my unlucky child. However, I am worried about who will take care of him when I am gone."
Wannee Thongkham, 57, is a widow of the southern violence.
Eight years ago, her husband, a Yala rubber farmer, was shot on his way to work by insurgents, who then beheaded him and burnt his body.
"My eldest son has had be the head of the family since then," she said.
"I feel worried every time he goes out for to the rubber plantation to take care of the family instead of his father.
"I pray that such a tragedy will not happen to my family again, nor to others."
Ms Wannee added that while the situation in the deep South is less turbulent than before, her family always made sure to live a cautious life.
So far, the southern unrest has produced 2,093 orphans in Pattani, 2,013 in Yala and 1,918 in Narathiwat, and a combined 3,000 widows in the three provinces.
On Saturday, Social Development and Human Security Minister Paveena Hongsakul visited Yala to seek further ways to compensate and rehabilitate widows, mothers and orphans affected by the insurgency, on top of the the government's existing compensation and assistance schemes.
"Beside financial compensation, we should focus on creating jobs for [the women and orphans] to help get them back on their feet," she said.
Sarah Binyor, assistant to Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre secretary-general Thawee Sodsong, said a major problem faced by the region's widows was that they had to take on their husbands' debts. "Some [of the dead husbands] were in debt by up to a million baht, and some were in debt to loan sharks," she said. "We have to negotiate with their creditors on a case-by-case basis."
In addition, Pol Col Thawee proposed another Children's Day be held especially for children affected by the southern violence.
According to the ministry's records, as of July 31, 2,705 widows had received 500,000 baht in compensation and job training, 5,398 orphans had been offered scholarships from the education ministry and 1,000-2,500 baht monthly subsidies from the social ministry, and 454 people left disabled by southern violence who were provided monthly subsidies of 1,000-3,000 baht.