Thailand: Suspected Muslim rebels storm temple, kill monks
Thailand's military leader and prime minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha on Saturday vowed to "punish" those responsible for storming a Buddhist temple near Malaysia's border, killing two monks. Suspected Muslim gunmen dressed in black arrived at the Rattanaupap temple in the southern province of Narathiwat on motorbikes at around 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday (1230 UTC), officials said.
They then entered the building from the back and shot dead two monks, leaving two others wounded. One of those killed was the temple's abbot.
"The ghastly attack on Buddhist monks by insurgents in Thailand's deep south is morally reprehensible, and a war crime and those responsible should be held to account," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. HRW has blamed the renewed violence on the militant group, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, BRN.
BRN has led a separatist campaign over the past 15 years that has left nearly 7,000 people, including at least 23 monks, dead. Narathiwat is one of Thailand's three southernmost provinces, the only ones with Muslim majorities in the Buddhist-dominated country. The three provinces and a small part of neighboring Songkhla were part of a sultanate annexed by Thailand in 1909, and tensions have simmered ever since.
The Thai military government has taken part since 2015 in talks brokered by Malaysia that aim to end the violence, but the BRN has stayed out of the dialogue. That process was stalled last year, and Bangkok has signaled that it will return to the talks this year.
https://www.dw.com/en/thailand-suspected-muslim-rebels-storm-temple-kill-monks/a-47147387
