Thailand shooting: At least six people dead at school near Bangkok

At least six people including three students have been killed after a student opened fire at a secondary school in Thailand on Friday morning.

Three teachers were killed in the attack at Debsirin Nonthaburi School, on the northern outskirts of Bangkok, while more than a dozen others were wounded, a police spokesperson said.

While early reports had quoted police saying the suspected gunman had died, police have confirmed he remains in critical condition and doctors are providing emergency treatment.

At least 15 people are wounded, with two in a critical condition, following the school of about 3,000 students, located on a busy highway in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province.

Students were evacuated from the area. / Credit: AP

A photo provided to ITV News’ North American partner CNN by a police official in Bangkok shows a single handgun and multiple rounds of ammunition scattered on the floor inside the school.

The firearm is believed to have belonged to a family member of the suspected gunman, but police have not yet determined how he gained access to the weapon, police said, adding that he had been living with adult relatives rather than with his parents.

Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau told ITV News’ North American partner CNN that the “situation is now under control”.

Video verified by CNN appears to show students running out of the school, as a staff member helps to evacuate them, while emergency workers rushed to the scene with stretchers.

Gun ownership in Thailand is relatively high compared with other countries in Southeast Asia.

There were more than 10.3 million civilian owned firearms in Thailand, or around 15 guns for every 100 people, according to 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS).

Thailand ranks as the Southeast Asian country with the second-highest gun homicides after the Philippines, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease database.

In February, a teacher died and a student was wounded in southern Thailand’s Hat Yai district after a gunman opened fire at a school.

In 2022, 36 people were killed, 24 of them children, in a massacre at a child care center in the northeast, believed to be the country’s deadliest incident of its kind.