Hatyai Before & After Dark :- Info-sharing & FRs

[PrimeOmega]

Originally Posted by proprimate

Bro,
I long time lost touch of the scene. What happened to thaivisitor or teevee???? SOmetimes when I in Hadyai and wan to see him, his hp cannot be reached. Can u PM me his number or for that matter yours, so that I can drop by to catch up and have some fun. Cheers!

Heard that he is on the run?

[KatoeyLover69]

Originally Posted by PrimeOmega

Heard that he is on the run?

Running away from who ? For what ???

[Mercenary19]

Originally Posted by proprimate

SOmetimes when I in Hadyai and wan to see him, his hp cannot be reached.

He's now in SG........

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 14 March 2007 :-

Bangkok, deep South on security alert

A security alert is in effect for Bangkok and the South today, when the Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Pattani (BRN) separatist movement marks the anniversary of its formation in 1963.

Pol Maj-Gen Adisorn Nonsi, acting chief of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said the city was fully prepared to counter any attack.

A strategy codenamed "Jan 50" was in force, combining the operations of the police and the military. Areas vulnerable to a strike were designated by three classifications - general alert, high alert and extra-high alert.

Locations on general alert are communities, bus stops and shopping areas. Those on high alert are government buildings and embassies. Residences of important figures are on extra-high alert.

Pol Maj-Gen Adisorn said road checkpoints would also be set up in specific locations to ensure normality.

Pol Col Utasin Litruengdet, chief of Chana Songkhram police station, said vending stalls were banned on the tourist-haunts of Khao San road and Rambutri road. Bags carried by people visiting these areas may also be searched.

An intelligence source said BRN leader Masae Useng had ordered 300 young men who had received insurgent training to launch attacks in the deep South.

Somchart Pimthanapoonporn, chairman of the Hat Yai-Songkhla Hoteliers Association, said more security guards were deployed and additional surveillance cameras installed at hotels in the province.

Security at Hat Yai railway station was also beefed up.

Army spokesman Col Akkara Tipparoj urged southern residents to carry identification cards as they may be asked to produce them on the spot.

In Narathiwat, a combined force of police, military and administrative officers set up road checkpoints downtown. Uniformed and plainclothes police are also patrolling the major business district, shopping venues and hotels.

Phatthalung governor Suthep Komolpamorn told a meeting with local administration officials to tighten security after leaflets were distributed warning of bloodshed and sabotage aimed at government buildings in the next day or two.

In Yala, forensic police said at least 10 people had colluded in the arson at Ban Rueneng school in Yaha district on Monday night.

Also in Yala, a pickup truck carrying 10 people, mostly Buddhists, was ambushed by gunmen in Bannang Sata district yesterday. One person was killed and six others injured as they were returning from a funeral rite in Pattani.

The 5th Infantry Division begins joint border patrols with Malaysian forces today, continuing until June 26.

Council for National Security spokesman Col Sansern Kaewkamnerd said an extra 20 companies of rangers were sent to the deep South to help maintain peace and order.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Wednesday 14 March 2007 :-

9 passengers massacred in van ambush in Yala

Yala - Muslim insurgents massacred all the nine passengers in a van in this southern border province in cold blood Wednesday morning, police said.

Police quoted the van driver, who managed to flee on foot as saying that the van was stopped by a falling tree on a village road in Yala's Yaha district at 9 am.

The van was taking nine passengers from Yala's Betong to Songkhla's Hat Yai district.

The driver told police that when he saw the tree blocking the road he tried to make detour to flee from the scene but an unknown number of insurgents jumped out of roadside bushes and blocked the van.

The driver left his vehicle and ran for his life.

He said the insurgents shot the heads of the nine passengers in point blank.

Eight of them died at the scene and the other died at a hospital.

Among the slain passengers were two children aging nine and ten years old.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Wednesday 14 March 2007 :-

Amulets to 'help protect' Buddhists in South

The security forces in the troubled South have announced their intention to produce spiritualist trinkets in a bid to protect the Buddhist minority from harm.

Colonel Manas Khongpan, deputy director of the Internal Security Operation Command (Isoc) in Yala, said yesterday that Jatukham Rammathep talismans would be made for Buddhists in the predominantly Muslim region.

The famous animist amulet is believed to have magical power to protect its holder from violence. Although it has no relation to Buddhism, many Thai Buddhists believe in the talisman's power and are prepared to pay large sums for them.

Isoc in Yala will produce the amulets at a temple in the province by May and then bring them to a blessing at Nakhon Si Thammarat, the original home of the amulet, Manas said.

The Boun Ban Dan amulets, meaning the "power of virtue", will be sold to Buddhists and security officials in the region.

The southern Buddhist population of around 300,000 is often the target of violence carried out by Muslim militants, who are determined to chase them out of the area, Manas said.

"The production of the Jatukham amulets will give moral support to Buddhists and help sustain the religion," the colonel said, as if the amulets were linked with the faith.

Many Thai Buddhists mix animism with their religious worship.

Any profits from amulet sales will be spent containing violence and the money will be managed transparently, he said.

A spate of violence erupted in the deep South at the beginning of 2004 and around 2,000 people have been killed since.

It continued yesterday in Yala's Bannang Sata district as militants sprayed bullets at a passing pickup truck, killing one person and injuring six.

Police said some 10 Buddhists on the truck were attacked while travelling back from a funeral in neighbouring Pattani province. Some of the group briefly returned fire before retreating.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Wednesday 14 March 2007 :-

Smog crisis in North could linger for weeks

High pressure may keep haze in air till April 2007, but Cabinet refuses to impose emergency moves

Weather experts have warned that the haze blanketing the North could linger until April as harmful dust levels hit the highest level since air quality tests revealed deteriorating conditions two weeks ago.

An abundance of fires lit in rural areas has been largely blamed for the pollution.

The haze is costing Chiang Mai alone up to Bt30 million a day in lost tourist income, the chairman of the northern provinces' chamber of commerce Narong Tana-nuwat said.

Despite the worsening situation, the Cabinet yesterday turned down an Environment Ministry proposal to declare the region an emergency control zone, in a bid to empower authorities to tackle the source of the problem.

Government spokesman Yongyuth Maiyalarp said yesterday the Cabinet had been told by the Meteorological Department's northern bureau that the smog could persist until April and that special monitoring may be needed until June.

The Pollution Control Depart-ment (PCD) reported yesterday that the level of dust particles smaller than 10 microns in Chiang Mai's air had reached 284 micrograms per cubic metre. The standard level for these particles in the air is 120 micrograms per cubic metre. Currently, provincial authorities have limited power to tackle the crisis.

Chiang Mai's provincial environment office asked restaurants and street vendors yesterday to temporarily stop using barbecues.

"These businesses share some responsibility for the smoke in the air," department head Phuchong Insomphan explained.

The city's authorities turned on all fountains for 24 hours to increase humidity and today fire trucks are due to spray water into the air in the city centre.

The Environment Ministry proposed that the Cabinet declare the emergency controls to enable provincial governors to ban all forms of combustion.

At present, governors can only ask people to stop burning rubbish, farm waste and clearing scrubland, which are believed to be the major causes of the haze.

If the Cabinet had agreed to the move, it would have been only the second time powers authorised under the 1992 Environmental Protection Act had been used. The first time was almost a decade ago when then premier Chuan Leekpai used the legislation to ban inland shrimp farming on the Central plains.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Saturday 17 March 2007 :-

Attacks continue in south despite curfew

YALA – A series of insurgent attacks persisted in Yala and Narathiwat provinces on Friday, although the Fourth Region Area imposed curfew in two districts of Yala on Thursday.

Samart Chanlek, 53, a Provincial Electricity Authority worker, was shot in his stomach by an unidentified gunman on Friday morning in Rueso district. The seriously wounded victim was rushed to hospital.

Mr. Samart was climbing up a power pole to fix it when he was attacked by a gunman in a drive-by shooting, according to investigators.

In Yala's Raman district, four gunmen armed with automatic rifles and shotguns fired on a teashop, wounding four patrons, who were taken to hospital.

The suspected insurgents also strewed tripod spikes on the roadway to prevent pursuit by the authorities.

Imposed Thursday, one day after the massacre of eight van passengers in Yala's Yaha district, the curfew does not appear to have reduced violence in the region.

Additionally, in Narathiwat's Rueso district Thursday night, suspected insurgents smashed and destroyed a waiting area pavilion for passengers and smashed signage at the Salowbugidyuelae train station.

The police also found a dummy bomb in black plastic laid on the railway.

Eyewitnesses at the station said they saw at least 15 young men destroying public facilities late Thursday night, but they dared not to call for help from neighbours to stop the vandalism.

The police said they believed the vandalism was done by militants in response to the curfew imposed by the Fourth Region Area Army.

In Songkhla, more than 2,000 people wearing yellow T-shirts gathered in front of the city hall to denounce attacks on innocent people.

They issued a statement, condemning the insurgents who killed nine van passengers in Yala on Wednesday.

The statement said the killing is inhumane and called for the insurgents to stop attacking innocent people.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 22 March 2007 :-

Southern extremists learning from bin Laden

Islamic separatists in the deep South are increasingly adopting al-Qaeda's Islamic extremist tactics, including gruesome beheadings and seemingly random attacks on civilians.

The increasingly bloody violence shows the growing Islamic influence on the separatists, Gen Watanachai Chaimuanwong told the French news agency AFP in an interview at his office in the prime minister's Government House compound.

The Muslim-majority region along Thailand's southern border with Malaysia has suffered outbreaks of separatist violence ever since Bangkok annexed the area a century ago.

But Watanachai, the top security adviser to army-installed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, said that while previous generations of rebels were mainly motivated by nationalism, today's militants showed a greater tendency toward religious extremism.

"This is a group of young turk militants who want to challenge the old groups. Their operations are more gruesome and more violent because they have imported those techniques from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, with the goal of creating a pure Islamic state," he said.

"They want to create a state called Pattani Darusalam" which would include Thailand's Muslim-majority south and two northern states in Malaysia, he said.

Attacks in the region have become more frequent, and the violence more gratuitous, since the military seized power in Bangkok six months ago.

An ice cream vendor was beheaded in broad daylight last month, his body left slumping on his cart. Militants beheaded another Buddhist man two weeks ago, setting his body ablaze on a roadside and leaving his head in the middle of the road a kilometre away.

As a former deputy chief of the army - who now wears dark business suits instead of military uniforms - 63-year-old Watanachai has dealt with the insurgency since the latest unrest erupted in January 2004.

The militants have never claimed responsibility for any of their attacks, and have never made any demands of the government.

Watanachai said security forces believed the militants had formed a new group called Rundi Kumpulan Kecil (RKK), which translates roughly as "Small Guerrilla Group," recruiting students from Islamic boarding schools as well as unemployed youths.

"There are up to 20,000 of these militants active in the three southern provinces, but their recruitment is slower now because the government has imposed strict controls on the boarding schools," he said.

Watanachai said the government expected a surge in violence after Thailand and Malaysia agreed last month to step up cooperation to end unrest that has left more than 2,000 dead in the past three years.

The rebels have also struggled to recruit new members from outside of the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, the former army chief added.

As a result, he said, the rebels had a hard time staging attacks outside the region.

However, he cautioned that authorities were now linking the insurgents - but not their cause - to deadly bombings in Bangkok on New Year's Eve which killed three people and wounded more than 40.

He insisted the attacks were not linked to the southern unrest, saying someone connected to the political turmoil in Bangkok had hired the militants to stage the attacks to further their own interests.

"The explosive devices were the kind commonly used in the south, and the people who made the bombs were militants who worked in the south, but they were hired to mount the attacks for another purpose," Watanachai said.

Militants in the south operate through a loose structure in which the actual attackers never see or interact with their commanders, he said.

"They would be asked by telephone to kill or behead someone. When they leave their house, they are empty-handed, but they go to pick up weapons at a pre-arranged drop point, without knowing who their commander is," he said.

In some cases, the young fighters are provided with drugs or cash for conducting attacks, Watanachai added.

New recruits spend up to 30 days in training in the deep jungle along the border, in caves, or even in abandoned buildings in towns, he said.

Watanachai warned the militants may be planning more spectacular attacks, including an assassination plot against a "prominent person" to draw attention to their cause.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 23 March 2007 :-

Hat Yai outlook goes from bad to worse

Hat Yai - Tourism conditions in Hat Yai are going from bad to worse, with some hotel operators leaving the area altogether, according to Nimitr Chaichiratikul, the president of the Tourist Business Federation of Songkhla.

The violence that re-emerged in the three southernmost provinces in 2004 has had an increasing effect on nearby Songkhla, where Hat Yai is the main commercial centre.

Bombings that took place in Hat Yai last year worsened the tourism outlook, and recent violence has made businesses even more pessimistic, Mr Nimitr told a meeting held yesterday by the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

Tourism and Sports Minister Suvit Yodmani chaired the meeting, at which businesses as well as officials were invited to voice their concerns.

Mr Nimitr estimated that Songkhla had lost about 15 billion baht since 2004. Foreign tourist arrivals are estimated at 600,000 to 700,000 this year, substantially down from one million a year before 2004, he said. Revenue is likely to be worth only 10 billion baht this year.

Foreign tourist arrivals declined to 720,826 in 2005, partially because of flooding, compared with 852,234 in 2004 and 1,044,900 in 2003. The number increased marginally last year to 720,860.

Tourism earned the province about 12 billion baht last year, a rise from 11.7 billion baht a year earlier but down from 14 billion baht in 2004. Foreign tourists, many of them Malaysians, contributed nearly half of Songkhla's tourism revenue.

Sawai Na Pathalung, executive chairman of Pink Hotel & Complex and adviser to the Thai Hotel Association of Hat Yai, said about seven three-star hotels were recently taken over by Singaporean investors.

The owners of more than 10 hotels are likely to be forced to sell this year because they could not afford to pay debt given the sharp drop in occupancy.

Normally, the occupancy rate of hotels in Hat Yai averages about 65%. The rate fell to only 20% after the latest bombings in September last year.

Hotel operations are generally able to survive only when their occupancy rate stays above 50%, Mr Sawai said.

''We desperately call on the government to help address the problems as soon as possible to restore the confidence of tourists about safety in order to boost the industry and consumption in the province,'' he said.

''Installing CCTV (closed-circuit TV) in public areas is also necessary.''

The government is also being urged to support soft loans with interest rates of 1.5% to 2% to hotel entrepreneurs in order to maintain their businesses.

According to the Songkhla TAT Office, the province has 167 hotels with a total of 11,777 rooms, 137 tour operators, 630 tour guides, and 370 restaurants.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

A very familiar and common love story ...............

Guy goes to Hatyai / Bangkok to fuck gal ............. falls head over heels in love with gal ......... marry gal and live happily ever after .........

Wonder if anyone knows that guy ?

Read on ...........

Report from Bangkok Post dated Saturday 14 April 2007 :-

Court interrupts brothel love story

Singapore - A man who bought freedom for a Thai woman trapped in a Singapore brothel so he could marry her has gone to the High Court to stop the deportation of his wife-to-be, news reports said on Saturday.

Wai Keen Weng, 31, and Amue Athu, 24, were due to wed last year, but Amue was arrested in October when she tried to extend her social visit pass. She was jailed for one year after pleading guilty to returning to the city-state despite being banned from the country.

Wai has been battling to free her and stop the deportation. His lawyer, RS Bajwa, petitioned the court on Friday for Amue's conviction to be quashed, The Straits Times reported.

Bajwa argued that she should not have been banned from entering Singapore in 2004 as she was a victim of human trafficking who had been coerced into working in the city-state as a prostitute.

Bajwa also said that Amue had unwittingly pleaded guilty because she could not understand the court proceedings. She belongs to the Akha hill tribe, which lives in the province of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand and has its own language.

The case was adjourned until Tuesday.

Wai, who works in his parents' advertising business, first met Amue on his birthday in May last year, the report said. He helped her escape from the brothel two months later.

"Meeting her on my 31st birthday was the best present and hopefully she can be released in time for my 32nd" in May, he was quoted as saying.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Saturday 14 April 2007 :-

Security tight for southern revellers - Lively celebrations, but road toll mounts

People in the restive deep South, unlike their compatriots across the country, celebrated Songkran yesterday amid tight security for fear of possible rebel attempst to rock the traditional New Year festivities.

Several hundred police and soldiers were deployed to provide added security for people attending events held by government authorities in the three border provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani.

The Police Region 9 Bureau and the Fourth Army, which are responsible for security in the three provinces, feared insurgents might disguise themselves as revellers to mingle with the crowds and launch attacks, causing heavy casualties.

To prevent any such incidents, the military warned people to celebrate only in areas where soldiers and police were present to ensure their safety.

Security in Yala was tighter than in neighbouring Pattani and Narathiwat, with extra security and roadside checkpoints set up around Muang district, security officials said.

Yala's celebration came two days after the grisly murder of 26-year-old Patcharaporn Bunmas, who was shot and set ablaze on Wednesday in Muang district.

Days before, a car carrying Muslim students back from a funeral in Yala's Bannang Sata district was shot at by village defence volunteers, killing four people including a 12-year-old boy.

In neighbouring Pattani and Narathiwat, celebrations were conducted with similar caution as in Yala.

Local authorities in Pattani and Narathiwat said they had received threats that the two provinces would be targets of specific attacks during the festival. They instructed people to celebrate Songkran for only one day and return home before dark for safety reasons.

However, Sirichai Kitticharoen, chairman of the Pattani Chamber of Commerce, said he was satisfied with security measures in place for revellers.

" I felt secure when I went out to see the people in Pattani throwing water at each other," said Mr Sirichai.

He said that he was certain those who did not come out to celebrate the festival had stayed home out of fear because of the ongoing violence in the province.

Around the rest of the country, people seemed to be celebrating Songkran with the usual vigour.

At Khao San road in Bangkok, a traditional Songkran wetspot for Thais and foreigners alike, and several northeastern provinces along the Mekong river, including Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom and Sakon Nakhon, Thai and foreign revellers were in full swing with the famous water throwing celebrations yesterday.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand expects around nine billion baht to be spent nationwide over the Songkran period.

But as millions of people took the opportunity to celebrate the traditional New Year, the less-pleasant side of Songkran also lived up to expectations, as dozens died and hundreds were injured in road accidents.

The Interior Ministry's Road Safety Centre said 57 people died and 720 were injured in 632 reported accidents across the country yesterday.

Phitsanulok and Nakhon Ratchasima have reported the highest death tolls so far, with five casualties each, followed by Nakhon Sawan with four deaths and Chiang Mai with three.

The centre said no casualties were reported in 43 of the country's 76 provinces yesterday. Chiang Mai has recorded the highest number of road accidents so far, with 27 incidents since Wednesday, followed by Udon Thani and Si Sa Ket.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Monday 16 April 2007 :-

Trains to Yala suspended - Buddhist protest rally entering its sixth day

The State Railway of Thailand (SRT) suspended train services between Yala and Narathiwat yesterday following an attack that injured two people aboard a train in Narathiwat's Rueso district on Saturday. According to SRT spokesperson Monthakarn Sriwilas, the state enterprise's board resolved to suspend services following an ambush on a train that was on its way from Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat to Nakhon Si Thammarat.

The gunfire wounded the train's engineer and a five-year-old girl. Both were hit in the leg but are recovering.

Ms Monthakarn said the service would be suspended for the safety of the SRT's property and passengers. The suspension will continue until the SRT considers the situation safe enough to resume services, she said.

The suspension also affects train services between Sungai Kolok near the Malaysian border and provinces to the north including Nakhon Si Thammarat, Surat Thani, Songkhla, Yala, Phatthalung and Bangkok. Trains heading south from those stations will now terminate in Yala.

Thousands of locals who normally depend on train services between Yala and Sungai Kolok had to hire a limited number of local trucks instead yesterday.

Kluesong Sama-ae, a grocer from Rangae district, Narathiwat, said people would be hit hard if train services did not resume soon.

Locals, especially traders who need to pick up supplies from Sungai Kolok and Malaysia, cannot afford the cost of hiring trucks to transport themselves and goods, she said.

Railway stations between Yala and Sungai Kolok were more or less deserted yesterday, manned only by railway officials and police to prevent more attacks. Not a single train had been left at Sungai Kolok railway station itself.

Sungai Kolok station chief Alawi Umar said passengers who had bought tickets would be refunded. However, he said there was no need for panic as he expected train services to resume today.

Security officials believe Saturday's attack was in retaliation for the arrest of seven militant suspects from a raid in the district on the same day.

Rueso police chief Pol Col Banlue Chuwet said the suspects had already been sent to the Ingkhayuthboriharn military camp in Pattani province for interrogation.

Authorities believe one of the suspects is responsible for launching a large number of attacks, the district police chief said. He also believed that local people were behind the train attack.

Elsewhere, the violence continued yesterday.

In Rueso district, a 70-year-old rubber tapper was shot dead and burnt on his way back from shopping in Aiyada village. The pillion rider-cum-gunman also took the victim's motorcycle, police said.

In front of the Yala provincial hall, a protest by Buddhists continued for the fifth day yesterday to demand decisive solutions to the violence. The gathering was sparked by the murder of Patcharaporn Bunmas, a recent graduate who was shot and burnt in Muang district last Wednesday.

Relatives have decided to indefinitely delay her cremation, which was scheduled for today.

They and other protesters want to increase the pressure on the government, they said. Protesters have formed an organisation and are asking relatives of other victims of the southern violence to join their protest and place the victims' bodies with that of Patcharaporn in front of the provincial hall.

They have also demanded a direct discussion with Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont. Government spokesman Yongyuth Mayalap said the prime minister would visit the far South from April 19-21.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Monday 16 April 2007 :-

Insurgents kill 70-years-old,fire at train - Surayud refuses to defer trip toregion on Friday

A 70-years-old Buddhist rubber farmhand was shot and burned by suspected Islamic militants as he drove his motorbike home from a market in Narathiwat's Rusoh district yesterday.

The incident happened days after a similar attack in Yala.

Meanwhile, the railway service on the Narathiwat-Sungai Kolok route has been suspended after suspected insurgents shot at a train on Saturday.

However, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said he still intended to visit the South on Friday as planned.

Suspected militants shot Thongmee Maiman three times in the head and torso before setting his body on fire and taking his motorcycle. Passers-by were able to prevent the corpse from being badly burned, police said.

On Wednesday, Patcharaporn Boonmart, a 26-year-old Buddhist woman, was shot and burned beyond recognition in Yala province while Council for National Security chairman Sonthi Boonyaratglin was in the region.

About 200 angry villagers paraded her remains through the streets of Yala town to demand that Sonthi, who is also the army chief, put an end to the unrelenting bloodshed in the South.

Meanwhile, government spokesman Yongyuth Mayalarp yesterday denied a news report that Surayud would visit Yala today to attend her funeral and cremation. He said the PM would visit the region on Friday.

State Railway of Thailand (SRT) public relations chief Monthakan Sriwilat said the stoppage of the Narathiwat-Sungai Kolok service would last for at least two days, yesterday and today. A service will be provided only to and from Yala. Passengers who had booked tickets can get refunds at Bangkok's Hua Lamphong station.

Because of the railway service suspension, passengers have turned to hiring two-row passenger trucks that usually provide services between districts and provinces.

Since yesterday morning, there were were not enough trucks to meet demand, especially for those who wanted to go to Malaysia.

On Saturday, gunmen shot at a train between Yala and Sungai Kolok, injuring two people.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 18 April 2007 :-

Southern trains suspended rest of week

Train services between Hat Yai district in this southern province and Sungai Kolok district of Narathiwat bordering Malaysia will remain suspended for at least five more days.

All 14 regularly scheduled passenger trains heading for Sungai Kolok district remain suspended for the third consecutive day on Tuesday since they were halted indefinitely on Sunday, after a train headed from Sungai Kolok to Nakhon Si Thammarat province was ambushed by insurgents in which an engineer and a young girl were shot and wounded in the legs.

Trains now stop at Yala station and passengers wanting to continue their journey to Sungai Kolok must travel by bus, truck or other means.

Senior officials of the State Railway of Thailand on Tuesday were reported to have conferred with the Fourth Army Region over an increase in security measures for the railway workers, after the railway labour union in Hat Yai submitted a letter to the Fourth Army Region commander on Monday, urging the southern army better protect passengers and crews.

The fourth army commander was reported to have promised the army would come up with extra security measures for train services within five days.

Trains heading to Sungai Kolok are expected to resume no later than April 22 when the Fourth Army Region can guarantee safety.
--- KatoeyNewsNetwork