Drugs,guns,questions:Grief turns to anger for families of Thai daycare massacre

Nong Bua Lamphu,Thailand: Grief has turned to anger for relatives of the children killed in Thailand’s worst mass slaying as questions mount about the government’s failure to control the proliferation of guns and drugs in the country.

The terrible reality ofthe daycare centre massacre in the rural,north-eastern village of Uthai Sawan was reinforced as families of the victims stood over their coffins and opened them,wailing in despair,at the local Buddhist temple.

Some who fainted and required medical assistance were stretchered to a first-aid tent set up in the grounds of the temple. Others were comforted by relatives and friends,who waved fans and treated them with cotton balls dipped in ammonia spirit.

On Friday night,Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida visited families of the deceased and injured at the main hospital in Nong Bua Lamphu province,where eight people seriously wounded in the attack were still being treated.

Of the 37 people slain in the gun and knife rampage by a discharged policeman on Thursday,at least 24 were children,aged between two and five.

Most were slashed to death as they slept in the middle of the day inside the childcare facility where the slaughter began.

“I’m very angry. If he didn’t die,I would have liked to kill him myself,” said Somkuan Karadee of the killer,34-year-old Panya Kamrab,who later turned his gun on himself after shooting his wife and three-year-old stepson.

Karadee’s four-year-old grandson Thanakorn was among those murdered. He had only returned to the nursery on Thursday after being ill for two weeks,she said.

“He wanted to be a teacher,a principal. He was a wise kid. He thought more than a lot of kids,” she said.

“It’s very hard to accept the truth.”

Wassana Leypol,who lives between two neighbours who both lost children in the horrific events here,also vented her fury.

“I’m mad but I’m curious as well,why did he decide to do that … why the kids?” she said. “He knows the time the kids are sleeping but he still did it. His stepson used to go to the school as well.

“I would like to wake him up from the dead and ask him ‘why did you do that?’ I am very angry. I also have questions for the police. After he was fired,why did they not take his guns?”

Police have said Kamrab purchased the handgun used in the attack legally,and it was not a weapon retained from his service in the force,which ended in June when he was sacked and charged for drug possession.

But the tragedy has prompted calls for the government to crack down on gun ownership.

While Thailand has strict firearms laws,there have been questions raised about how strictly they are enforced.

One in seven people in the country own guns,according to government figures,but many more are sold on the illegal market.

The killing spree on Thursday came two years after a mass shooting by a soldier that left 29 dead and criminologist Krisanaphong Poothakool said it was time for reform in Thailand’s approach to guns.

An associate professor at Thailand’s Rangsit University,he told Thai PBS television that people buying weapons should be required to undergo mental health screenings and have their criminal record examined before being issued a licence.

The childcare centre massacre has also led to demands for the government to reign in the flow of illicit substances through the country from the Golden Triangle,the infamous drug-producing region comprising border areas of Myanmar,Laos and Thailand.

Police said an initial forensic analysis had shown Kamrab didn’t have drugs in his system but he had a history of methamphetamine use and was due to hear a court judgment on Friday on alleged drug offences.

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Thailand’s main opposition party,Pheu Thai,slammed the government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha for failing to properly tackle the booming drug trade,vowing to get tough on traffickers if it comes to power at an election due by next year.

Prayut met with families of the deceased in Uthai Sawan on Friday as government officials handed them large,plastic replica cheques denoting how much each was being granted as compensation for the loss of their loved ones.

The figures on the cheques ranged from about 400,000 Thai baht ($16,600) to more than 1.2 million ($50,000).

A government spokesman said total compensation amounted to 13.18 million baht ($550,000),local media reported.

- with Art Akkarawat

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