Official, policeman victims in Thai south

Official, policeman victims in Thai south

THAILAND: One state official has been killed and a policeman wounded in separate gun attacks in Thailand's Muslim-majority south where more than 325 people have died in separatist violence this year, police said on Sunday.

Pattani provincial official Arthit Damkliang, 41, died on the way to hospital on late Saturday after being gunned down outside his house by two men on a motorcycle, said police.

Arthit was the first official to be killed by gunmen since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan on Oct. 15.

Earlier that day Police Sergeant Avirut Samanung, 50, was shot six times by gunmen on a motorcycle in front of hundreds of people at a market in Narathiwat province, a police spokesman said. He remains in a critical condition.

A separatist insurgency in the Muslim-majority south has continued sporadically for decades and sparked into life again in January with a raid on an army depot. -- AFP