Dozens of people were killed during a shooting and knife attack Thursday that began at a childcare center in the northeastern town of Nong Bua Lamphu in Thailand, authorities said.
Among the 36 victims, 24 were children in the country’s deadliest mass shooting. The assailant, a 34-year-old former police officer, began his attack at the center before shooting out of his car on his way home, where he killed his family and himself, authorities told the Associated Press.
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At least 22 children and two adults were killed in the building before the assailant fled and killed an additional two children elsewhere, according to a police statement. No motive for the attack has been released, but the suspect was fired from the police force earlier this year for drug-related offenses.
An unidentified witness said he or she had locked the door to the building after seeing the suspect approaching with a handgun, but he shot through it. The man also used a shotgun and a knife in the attack, according to police.
“The teacher who died, she had a child in her arms,” the witness told Thailand’s Kom Chad Leuk television. “I didn’t think he would kill children, but he shot at the door and shot right through it.”
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Thailand does not have strict firearms laws, but mass shootings in the country are rare. Prior to Thursday’s attack, the deadliest mass shooting occurred in 2020, when a soldier killed 29 people at a mall before being killed by police.
The rate of firearms-related deaths in Thailand in 2019 was approximately 4 per 100,000, compared with about 11 per 100,000 in the United States and nearly 23 per 100,000 in Brazil, according to the outlet.
