A 14-year-old boy has been arrested after a shooting at a busy luxury mall in the centre of Bangkok, Thai police have said.
Emergency services said at least three people were killed and three injured in the incident at the Siam Paragon shopping centre at about 5pm local time. Medics said one of the wounded was a foreign national.
Footage shared on social media showed crowds running to evacuate the mall, ushered out by security guards. In a separate video, apparently taken in the food court on the lower floor of the building, a staff member ducked below a dessert counter, as sounds similar to gunfire could be heard.
One of the videos showed people taking cover in a darkened room inside a restaurant, while live television showed long queues of traffic outside the mall in torrential rain.
Thai media reported that gunfire had been heard coming from a toilet in the mall.
The prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, said in a post on Twitter, now known as X: “I am aware of the shooting event at Siam Paragon and have ordered the police to investigate. I am most worried about public safety.”
Mass shootings have become a growing concern in Thailand over recent years. In October last year, 22 young children were killed during a gun and knife attack by a former police officer at a nursery in Utthai Sawan, in north-east Thailand. In 2020, 29 people were killed and 57 wounded in a shooting across several areas, including at a shopping mall, in the north-eastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima.
On social media on Tuesday, some Thai people called for an emergency SMS function to warn the public of such shootings.
