What we know so far …
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Thai police say that a 14-year-old boy killed two of his grandparents at their home using a handgun belonging to his grandfather.
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The suspect then went to the Debsirin School, where he was a pupil, and opened fire.
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Amid conflicting reported casualty figures, police have said five teachers were shot at the school, before the suspect shot himself.
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At least 30 people were injured in the shooting, with at least nine of them believed to be severely wounded.
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Thailand’s prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the suspect was “under stress” and appeared to have planned the assault.
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Charnvirakul has vowed to propose a new law to restrict the carrying of firearms by the public, in a country which has one of the highest rates of private gun ownership in the world. The country has witnessed several mass shootings in recent years.
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The Higher Education minister has donated blood at a hospital near to the location of the school, and urged members of the public to do the same.
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Police officers and authorities have been pictured collecting evidence at the house where the suspect lived, including removing computer equipment from the dwelling.
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The school where the shooting took place has announced it will be closed next week.
Key events
We are closing this blog now. You can read more about the Thailand school shooting in our story here.
In this video report, students at the school describe what they heard during the terrifying attack this morning:
The Debsirin secondary school has said that in the wake of the deadly shooting all classes will be suspended between 10 and 14 August, with staff being instructed to work from home during that time.
Bangkok’s Thairath is reporting that Thailand’s health minister, Phatthana Phromphat, has issued a statement regarding three serious injuries after the school shooting.
He has visited the Phra Nang Klao hospital, which, he said, had admitted three patients in a critical condition. Two of them have received surgery and are in a stable condition. The third, a 12-year-old girl, remains in a coma, with concerns about her injury as she has a bullet wound to the head.
What we know so far …
-
Thai police say that a 14-year-old boy killed two of his grandparents at their home using a handgun belonging to his grandfather.
-
The suspect then went to the Debsirin School, where he was a pupil, and opened fire.
-
Amid conflicting reported casualty figures, police have said five teachers were shot at the school, before the suspect shot himself.
-
At least 30 people were injured in the shooting, with at least nine of them believed to be severely wounded.
-
Thailand’s prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the suspect was “under stress” and appeared to have planned the assault.
-
Charnvirakul has vowed to propose a new law to restrict the carrying of firearms by the public, in a country which has one of the highest rates of private gun ownership in the world. The country has witnessed several mass shootings in recent years.
-
The Higher Education minister has donated blood at a hospital near to the location of the school, and urged members of the public to do the same.
-
Police officers and authorities have been pictured collecting evidence at the house where the suspect lived, including removing computer equipment from the dwelling.
-
The school where the shooting took place has announced it will be closed next week.
Thailand’s higher education minister, Yodchanan Wongsawat, has been pictured by local news sources donating blood at the Phra Nang Klao hospital in Thailand’s Nonthaburi province. He appealed to members of the public to also donate blood in order to assist with treating those caught up in the school shooting.
Some images dropping on the news wires show police and authorities removing evidence including computer equipment from the house where a teenager is suspected of killing his grandparents before carrying out the school shooting in Nonthaburi province which has left several people dead.
Natasha May
To Prompong Namwong, an English teacher at the school, it was a normal morning. He was in the middle of a lesson when suddenly a panicked student from another class flung open the door, trying to find somewhere to hide.
Confused, Namwong went out into the corridor. That’s when he heard other teachers shouting: “mass shooting.”
He told his students to hide underneath the tables. “The killer, the student, he was running in front of my room. I thought I was going to die for sure.”
Namwong estimates he waited with his students, panicked, in lockdown for about 20 to 30 minutes. When he heard a knock on the door he thought the end had come but it turned out to be the police rescuing them.
He would find out in the school’s group chat that his friends had not been so lucky. “They’re all good teachers. I don’t know what to say.”
“I never thought to myself that it would happen – really happen – in my school. I thought it would never happen.”
“I don’t know what to do. My life has to go on, but right now … it’s a very great shock.”
Thailand’s PM vows new gun law after deadly school shooting
Thailand’s prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, has vowed to propose a law to restrict the carrying of firearms by the public.
“The new law will only allow government officials on duty to carry guns,” he told reporters on Friday, but did not provide any specifics, including whether the legislation will tighten gun ownership requirements.
Thailand is known to have the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in south-east Asia, and the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey in 2017 placed the country 13th globally for small gun possession, as my colleague notes in this story.
Mass-shootings have also regularly occurred in Thailand, including incidents at schools, a major Bangkok mall and a 2022 attack in the country’s northeast that killed 36 people including 22 children.
The country’s licensing regime still lacks mental health screening for people applying to possess a gun and does not require periodic reassessments for licence holders, according to Piyaporn Tunneekul, an associate professor at Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat university in Thailand.
“We only look at things like: Do you have money? Do you have a necessary reason to protect your property? Do you want it for self-defence? But in other countries, authorities say those are not good reasons,” she told the Reuters news agency.
Natasha May
Evening is falling, but all around the schoolchildren’s shoes – black mary janes and white trainers – are still strewn around lunch tables and the stairs outside classrooms.
It’s school rules in Thailand that children take off their shoes before entering the building – a cultural norm across Asia in buildings such as temples, homes and certain businesses.
But when children were able to leave their classrooms after the lockdown “the kids left without their shoes,” English teacher Prompong Namwong told the Guardian.
Namwong estimates the lockdown lasted somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes and then the children were then gathered in an assembly behind the school and their parents collected them.
Teen suspect killed at least seven people and injured more than 30, officials say
Thai officials have revised down the death toll from the school shooting. Earlier officials said a total of eight people were killed (the suspect’s two grandparents at their home, and then three teachers and three students at the school).
But now the national police said the 14-year-old suspect killed seven people overall: first his two grandparents, using his grandfather’s handgun, at their home, then he was said to have killed five school staff at the Debsirin secondary school in Nonthaburi province.
The suspect also died, with a police official telling the AFP news agency that he had killed himself after the attack.
Thailand’s prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, has confirmed that more than 30 people were injured, with around nine in critical condition.
Natasha May
Pichanan Thiengtham, an art teacher at the school, was in the teachers’ lounge getting ready for her next class when she heard the shots at about 10am in the morning.
Thiengtham told the Guardian she couldn’t believe it was a gun at first – “there were so many shots and they lasted for a long time without stopping,” she said.
It was only when she saw one of the students injured she realised what was happening on the school grounds. “I took the injured student to get first aid and then transferred them to the hospital (in the school’s) building one.”
Then she hid, fearing for her own safety. She knew the teachers and students – “everyone” – who were not so lucky, and fears for those who are still in a critical condition.
Thiengtham spoke with the Guardian as she was still on the school grounds late Friday afternoon, helping transfer children’s backpacks that had been strewn on the grounds in the rush to escape to a locked room.
Suspect was ‘under stress’ and appeared to have planned the attack, Thailand’s PM says
Thailand’s prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, has been speaking to reporters at the scene. He said the suspect was “under stress” and appeared to have planned the assault.
“Police interrogated his close friend who said the suspect had been under stress” related to his schooling, Anutin told journalists gathered outside the secondary school in Nonthaburi province.
“His actions also suggested that he had clearly planned (the shooting).” The prime minister added that he would discuss gun control with the country’s police chief.
He also confirmed reports that the suspected shooter was 14 years old and killed himself following the attack.
