Candlelight vigil for Thailand massacre victims in Melbourne as funerals begin
Buddhist funeral rites and prayers have begun, starting three days of mourning for victims of one of Thailand’s worst ever massacres, as a vigil was held in Melbourne. Warning: Graphic
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Buddhist funeral rites and prayers for the dead began Saturday, starting three days of mourning for the victims of one of Thailand’s worst ever mass killings.
Heartbroken families prayed for the victims of the nursery massacre as the king offered his support, telling relatives he “shares their grief” in a rare public interaction with his subjects.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn met survivors and relatives at a hospital in northeastern Nong Bua Lam Phu province late on Friday, a day after an ex-policeman murdered 24 children and 12 adults on a three-hour gun and knife rampage in a sleepy rural area.
Families and well-wishers offered prayers at a Buddhist temple on Saturday, beginning three days of funeral rituals for the victims of one of the country’s worst ever mass killings.
Incense mingled with the smell of countless bouquets of flowers arrayed around the coffins, many topped with photos of the smiling chubby faces of children cut down by sacked police sergeant Panya Khamrab.
Flowers and toys offered as gifts to the departed youngsters piled up at the gates of the nursery as the close-knit community in rural Na Klang district struggled to comprehend the atrocity.
“I have son myself and he likes to play with toy cars, so I thought the children killed in the attack would love it as well -- they were about the same age as my son,” Weerapol Sonjai, 38, told AFP after leaving an offering.
AUSSIES HOLD CANDLELIGHT VIGIL
In Australia, a candlelight vigil was held at Federation Square on Saturday night to honour the victims of Thailand’s deadliest mass killing.
A former policeman killed at least 37 people, including at least 24 children, during a rampage at a daycare centre in Thailand’s Nongbua Lamphu province on Thursday. The gunman later shot his wife and child at home before killing himself.
About 100 people turned out to pay their respects at Saturday’s candlelight vigil, including “teal” independent MPs Dr Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel, as well as former broadcaster and former federal senator Derryn Hinch.
Mourners spoke of how the horrific attack has reverberated in Thai communities around the world, while Buddhist monks chanted and blessed attendees at the vigil.
“It is unspeakable and unimaginable… I cannot believe this would happen in Thailand,” said Thai Australian Chamber President Tessa Sullivan.
Nongbua Lamphu, Ms Sullivan said, was the “poorest province in Thailand” and it “would be poorer” because of the horrific tragedy. She added, “There is one thing that universally speaks to us all which is the innocence of children.
“Pray for Thailand.”
Independent member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, said it “was terrible tragedy” for one of Australia’s nearest neighbours.
“For someone who lives in Thailand for four years, my heart goes out to the Thai people,” she said.
Ms Daniel, who had covered mass shootings in the United States in her previous career as a ABC journalist, said the province will struggle to pick up the pieces in the wake of the massacre.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think communities ever recover from this... it is deeply traumatising for those communities,” she said.
“There will be deep trauma, for those directly impacted and for the broader community. “Especially in that rural area of Thailand, in that locality there won’t be anyone who isn’t touched by this.”
THAI FAMILIES GRIEVE
One by one, grieving parents came to lay single white roses on the steps of the Thai child care centre where nearly two dozen of their children were murdered.
Some bowed their heads in prayer, some hugged each other in consolation as they laid the blooms on the steps of the low, yellow-walled building, tributes to 22 young lives cut short.
One mother wept inconsolably, hugging her dead son’s favourite red-and-yellow blanket and his milk bottle, still half-full.
Outside the nursery, in a local government compound on the edge of a village deep in the green farmlands of northeast Thailand, scores of traumatised relatives gathered.
Attacker Panya Khamrab, a sacked policeman, killed at least 36 people on his gun-and-knife rampage, including his own wife and child, in one of Thailand’s worst ever mass killings, before ending his own life.
It was previously reported 37 people had been killed in the attack.
Naliwan Duangkot, 21, who lost her two-year-old nephew Kamram at the nursery, comforted the boy’s mother, her 19-year-old sister-in-law Panita Prawanna.
“Before he passed away he wished to eat pizza. We were very sad that we didn’t buy pizza for him before,” Naliwan told AFP.
“He was very sweet, very kind, he always shared things with children, with everyone,” she said.
“Last night for him, he was very difficult and he asked if he could sleep with his parents, and his little sister,” she said.
“We don’t accept that this is going to be his last night with his parents and his little sister.”
The family heard about Thursday’s shooting from neighbours.
Panita and her husband rushed to the scene by motorbike to search for Kamram, only to learn the worst.
Cradling her 11-month-old daughter Kanta, Panita fought back tears as she said: “It is incomprehensible.”
At the hospital in Nong Bua Lam Phu, the nearest town, relatives of the injured waited in turns at the ICU to visit their loved ones, bringing food, diapers and other supplies.
As the day wore on and the heat rose under the baking tropical sun, more and more people arrived at the nursery -- the whole of a small rural community united in grief.
Where two days ago children played happily, now adults sat in shock, their disbelieving silence punctuated by occasional soft weeping.
Buarai Tanontong, 51, who lost two three-year-old grandsons, was among those left stunned by the events.
“I was very shocked and frightened. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t think that it would be my two grandsons,” she said as she clutched her distraught daughter’s shoulder outside the nursery.
Kamjad Pra-intr said the gunman was a familiar figure in the area.
“Everyone knows who the shooter is. He used to be a police officer. He was a nice guy but later on we all know he was into meth,” she said.
“It’s a small community so we know each other and we are like a family, I know three or four kids who died there.”
TOTS KILLED IN THEIR SLEEP, ‘HEADS SLASHED’
A former Thai police officer armed with a gun and a knife killed at least 36 people in northeast Thailand, most of them children at a nursery, in one of the kingdom’s deadliest mass killings.
Following the attack, gunman Panya Khamrab went home and killed his wife and child before taking his own life, police said.
Armed with a shotgun, pistol and knife, Panya opened fire on the childcare centre in northeastern Nong Bua Lam Phu province, at about 12.30pm (4.30pm AEDT) Thursday.
Police Colonel Jakkapat Vijitraithaya from Nong Bua Lam Phu province said there were at least 23 child victims, aged two to three years old, that were asleep at the time of the rampage.
After the attack, the gunman fled in a pick-up truck and then went home and killed himself and his wife and child, Mr Jakkapat said.
National Police Chief Damrongsak Kittiprapat told a news conference the gunman had killed 37 people, including 23 children and his own family, and wounded 12 others.
Nanthicha Punchum, acting chief of the nursery, described harrowing scenes as the attacker barged into the building in rural Uthai Sawan district.
“There were some staff eating lunch outside the nursery and the attacker parked his car and shot four of them dead,” she told AFP.
“The shooter smashed down the door with his leg and then came inside and started slashing the children’s heads with a knife.”
Footage after the incident showed distraught parents weeping in a shelter outside the nursery, a yellow single-storey building set in a garden.
The 34-year-old gunman was a former police sergeant suspended in January and sacked in June for drug use, Damrongsak told reporters.
“As far as I know he was due in court tomorrow for a drug-related trial,” he said.
He said the attacker was in a manic state but it was unknown whether it was drug-related.
“What happened today will be a lesson to prevent this happening again in the future,” he said.
Damrongsak said the pistol used had been purchased legally and was a privately owned weapon, not police property.
Witness Paweena Purichan, 31, said the attacker was well known in the area as a drug addict.
She told AFP she encountered Panya driving erratically as he fled the scene.
“The attacker rammed a motorbike into two people who were injured. I sped off to get away from him,” she said.
“There was blood everywhere.”
Video Paweena posted online showed a woman lying injured in a roadside bush after apparently being knocked off her motorbike by Panya.
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha ordered the national police chief to “fast-track an investigation” and said he would travel to the scene of the attack on Friday.
“This should not happen. This absolutely should not happen,” Prayut told reporters.
“I am extremely sorry for those who were injured and lost (their loved ones).”
A government spokesman said flags would fly at half-mast on Friday to honour those killed in the attack.
Thailand forms part of Southeast Asia’s so-called Golden Triangle, which has long been an infamous hotspot for the trafficking and abuse of drugs.
Surging supplies of methamphetamine have sent street prices crashing in Thailand to all-time lows, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivered a message of support following the attack.
“It’s impossible to comprehend the heartbreak of this horrific news from Thailand. All Australians send their love and condolences,” he said in a tweet.
The White House said the United States is “horrified” by the shooting, while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was shocked and saddened and expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss tweeted: “I am shocked to hear of the horrific events in Thailand this morning. My thoughts are with all those affected and the first responders.”
While Thailand has high rates of gun ownership, mass shootings are extremely rare.
But in the past year, there have been at least two other cases of shooting murders by serving soldiers, according to The Bangkok Post.
And 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.
That mass shooting was linked to a debt dispute between gunman Sergeant-Major Jakrapanth Thomma and a senior officer, and the military top brass were at pains to portray the killer as a rogue soldier.
Originally published as Candlelight vigil for Thailand massacre victims in Melbourne as funerals begin
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