How ‘miracle girl’, 3, survived Thailand massacre

Nong Am was the only child to survive after Panya Khamrab broke into a locked room where dozens of children were sleeping and went on the rampage.

Nong Am, three, miraculously survived the massacre. Picture: Viral Press

A three-year-old girl miraculously survived the massacre at a Thai nursery - and slept through the whole thing.

Nong Am was the only child to survive after former policeman Panya Khamrab, 34, broke into a locked room where dozens of children were sleeping before shooting and stabbing them to death.

A total of 37 people died in Khamrab’s rampage in Nong But Lamphu, northern Thailand, on Thursday, including 24 children - some as young as two years old.

After leaving the nursery - where he also shot dead adults including an eight-months’ pregnant woman - he went home and murdered his wife and son.

Nong Am, three, miraculously survived the massacre. Picture: Viral Press

Little Nong went unnoticed by the twisted killer because she was in a deep sleep with a blanket pulled up over her head.

“It is a miracle from God that saved my niece’s life,” her uncle Wutthichai Baothong said.

“Brothers and sisters, out of 30, she was the only one to survive.”

The little girl was being comforted by her family on Friday.

Meanwhile, grieving parents have come to lay single white roses on the steps of the nursery.

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.

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.

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.

Mourners arrive to lay flowers outside the childcare centre (Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

Panya Khamrab killed himself after committing mass murder (Photo by Handout / THAILAND'S CENTRAL INVESTIGATION BUREAU / 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.”

Flowers are seen outside the nursery. (Photo by Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Getty Images)

Families of victims mourn while waiting for blessings from Buddhist monks. (Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)

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.

Local 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.” Kam Pornnikom described the horror of learning that his three-year-old grandson was among the dead.

“My heart almost stopped. His parents had split up so I was like his father-figure and the grandmother was like his mother,” he said.

“I’m speechless. How could he do this to children?”