A Thai gunman kills 32 people, including 23 children, at a nursery school.
On Thursday, a former police officer stormed a nursery in Thailand and shot at least 30 people, the majority of whom were children, before taking his own life and that of his family.
At around 12:30 pm (0530 GMT), the assailant, who was carrying a shotgun, a pistol, and a knife, started shooting at the daycare facility in Nong Bua Lam Phu province before escaping in a pickup truck.
Anucha Burapachaisri, a spokesman for the Thai prime minister's office, stated that "at least 30 people have died as a result of the shooting incident."
According to police colonel Jakkapat Vijitraithaya from the province where the attack took place, there are at least 23 children among the dead.
After the attack, the shooter went home and killed his wife, child, and himself, according to Jakkapat.
Panya Khamrab, 34, has been identified as the shooter, and according to Jakkapat, he was fired from the police department last year for drug use.
Eyewitness Paweena Purichan, 31, was riding her motorcycle to her shop when she encountered the fleeing Panya, driving erratically.
"He intended to crash into others on the road," she told AFP.
"The attacker rammed a motorbike, and two people were injured." I sped off to get away from him. "
"Blood was all over the place."
The attacker was well known as a drug addict in the neighborhood, according to Paweena.
Thailand is a part of the infamous "Golden Triangle" of Southeast Asia, which has long been a center for drug abuse and trafficking.
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, rising methamphetamine supplies have caused street prices in Thailand to reach record lows.
Mass shootings are uncommon.
The mass murder occurred less than a month after a serving army officer shot and killed two of his comrades at a military training facility in Bangkok.
Despite the high rate of gun ownership in Thailand, mass shootings are extremely uncommon.
However, the Bangkok Post reports that there have been at least two other instances of serving soldiers killing people with a gun in the past year.
In 2020, in one of the kingdom's deadliest incidents in recent years, a soldier gunned down 29 people in a 17-hour rampage and wounded scores more before he was shot dead by commandos.
Armed forces were criticized by the public following that mass shooting, which was connected to a financial dispute between the shooter and a senior officer, Sergeant-Major Jakrapanth Thomma.
Before leaving, the soldier was able to steal assault rifles from a military storage facility.
