NAKHON RATCHASIMA: In a fourth-floor toilet of the Terminal 21 mall, shoppers jammed cubicle doors against the entrance to keep out a Thai soldier on a shooting spree, tracing his movements through fragments of CCTV passed on by friends on the outside.
Barricaded in the women’s toilet with a few dozen others, Chanathip Somsakul, a 33-year-old music teacher, and his wife pored through social media and made frantic calls to friends and family.
Their daughter Chopin sat watchfully on a ledge, a three-year-old bystander to a mass killing without precedent in Thailand.
Nakhon Ratchasima, a mid-size Thai city entwined like much of the northeastern Isaan region by tight family connections and social media networks, quickly began to rally to its own trapped inside.
“A friend who works at the mall was talking to a guy in the CCTV control room... he gave us updates on the location of the gunman,” Chanathip told AFP on Sunday.
Those details, shared over messaging apps, may have saved the lives of Chanathip, his family and the 20-30 others inside.
But in the swirl of competing information, dread gripped those hidden inside cupboards, storerooms and toilets across the mega-mall.
“Everyone was terrified and lost. There was so much information going around, people weren’t sure what to believe,” Chanathip added.
For hours, a killer stalked the concourses, the glass-fronted windows of the multi-level mall spider-webbed by bullet holes.
The gunman — a soldier apparently angered by a dispute over the sale of a house — had already slain several people on his way into the shopping center, the largest in the city and packed on the first day of a long weekend.
Sergeant-Major Jakrapanth Thomma swaggered through the mall, a machine gun slung over his shoulder and wearing a helmet and combat gear, in full view of CCTV cameras.
By the end of his spree at least 30 people would be dead — himself included. Many more are wounded, several critically.
Fear snapped through Chanathip’s hideout when someone banged on the toilet door.
“I thought it could be the gunman. A lady asked ‘who is it?’ but there was no answer. She wanted to open the door but we all convinced her not to.”
Chanathip had just finished teaching a music lesson and — like hundreds of others — was eating in the mall with his family when gunfire erupted.
His family took refuge in the women’s toilet. Some men pulled the toilet doors off and wedged them against the entrance.
At 9 p.m. on Saturday they received word from police that they could leave, which they did — in an orderly fashion at first, along with dozens of others.
But gunshots rang out as they reached a car park, sparking a wild sprint.
Inside, scores of others remained trapped, cowering in gym toilets, under restaurant tables and in store rooms — hoovering up information on the whereabouts of the gunman.
From inside the stockroom of H&M, Aldrin Baliquing, a Filipino teacher in his 40s, meditated to stay calm.
“I was so scared because the shop where we were trapped was just above the establishment where the gunman held his hostages,” he said, referring to unconfirmed reports the rogue soldier had taken human shields.
As police began to clear bullet-riddled cars and rust-red blood stains on the street that had dried in the Thai heat, survivors tried to make sense of a night of terror.
“Everything happened so fast,” Lapasrada Khumpeepong, 13, told AFP during a Sunday vigil for the dead and injured.
She and her mother had been trapped in the bathroom on the ground floor of Terminal 21, cornered there for five hours after they tried to flee from the sound of rapid gunfire.
“Thank you to those who sacrificed themselves to keep others alive,” she scrawled on a condolences board at the vigil.
“Without you, we would not be here today.”
Thai mall shooting survivors tracked killer via CCTV
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Thai mall shooting survivors tracked killer via CCTV
- Authorities are still piecing together details of how a soldier killed at least 29 people and wounded dozens
UN chief slams land mine threat days after US decision to supply Ukraine
- The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines ‘very important’ to halting Russian attacks
In remarks sent to a conference in Cambodia to review progress on the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, UN chief Antonio Guterres hailed the work of clearing and destroying land mines across the world.
“But the threat remains. This includes the renewed use of anti-personnel mines by some of the Parties to the Convention, as well as some Parties falling behind in their commitments to destroy these weapons,” he said in the statement.
He called on the 164 signatories — which include Ukraine but not Russia or the United States — to “meet their obligations and ensure compliance to the Convention.”
Guterres’ remarks were delivered by UN Under-Secretary General Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.
AFP has contacted her office and a spokesman for Guterres to ask if the remarks were directed specifically at Ukraine.
The Ukrainian team at the conference did not respond to AFP questions about the US land mine supplies.
Washington’s announcement last week that it would send anti-personnel land mines to Kyiv was immediately criticized by human rights campaigners.
The outgoing US administration is aiming to give Ukraine an upper hand before President-elect Donald Trump enters office.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the mines “very important” to halting Russian attacks.
The conference is being held in Cambodia, which was left one of the most heavily bombed and mined countries in the world after three decades of civil war from the 1960s.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet told the conference his country still needs to clear over 1,600 square kilometers (618 square miles) of contaminated land that is affecting the lives of more than one million people.
Around 20,000 people have been killed in Cambodia by land mines and unexploded ordnance since 1979, and twice as many have been injured.
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said on Wednesday that at least 5,757 people had been casualties of land mines and explosive remnants of war across the world last year, 1,983 of whom were killed.
Civilians made up 84 percent of all recorded casualties, it said.
Philippines’ Marcos says threat of assassination ‘troubling’
- Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday he will not take lightly “troubling” threats against him, just days after his estranged vice president said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she herself was killed.
In a video message during which he did not name Vice President Sara Duterte, his former running mate, Marcos said “such criminal plans should not be overlooked.”
Security agencies at the weekend said they would step up their protocols and investigate the statement, which Duterte made at a press conference. The vice president’s office has acknowledged a Reuters request for comment.
An average of 140 women and girls were killed by a partner or relative per day in 2023, the UN says
- The agencies reported approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed in 2023
- The rates were highest in Africa and the Americas and lowest in Asia and Europe
UNITED NATIONS: The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two UN agencies reported Monday.
Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said.
The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.
But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”
The highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, the report said. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people.
There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.
According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.
By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.
“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.
“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.
The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”
“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.
Russia says it downs seven Ukrainian missiles over Kursk region
Russia’s air defense systems destroyed seven Ukrainian missiles overnight over the Kursk region, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine said on Monday.
He said that air defense units also destroyed seven Ukrainian drones. He did not provide further details.
A pro-Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin, who serves as an adviser to the governor, said on his Telegram messaging channel that “Kursk was subjected to a massive attack by foreign-made missiles” overnight.
Pakistani police arrest thousands of Imran Khan supporters as capital under lock down ahead of rally
Pakistani police arrest thousands of Imran Khan supporters as capital under lock down ahead of rally
- Former PM Imran Khan has been behind bars for more than a year and has over 150 criminal cases against him
- Earlier on Sunday, Pakistan suspended mobile and Internet services ‘in areas with security concerns’
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police arrested thousands of Imran Khan supporters as the capital remained under lock down ahead of a rally there to demand the ex-premier’s release from prison, a security officer said Sunday.
Khan has been behind bars for more than a year and has over 150 criminal cases against him. But he remains popular and his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI, says the cases are politically motivated.
Shahid Nawaz, a security officer in eastern Punjab province, said police have arrested more than 4,000 Khan supporters. They include five parliamentarians.
Pakistan has since Saturday sealed off Islamabad with shipping containers and shut down major roads and highways connecting the city with PTI strongholds in Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
Tit-for-tat teargas shelling between the police and the PTI was reported on the highway bordering Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Earlier on Sunday, Pakistan suspended mobile and Internet services “in areas with security concerns.”
The government and Interior Ministry posted the announcement on the social media platform X, which is banned in Pakistan. They did not specify the areas, nor did they say how long the suspension would be in place.
“Internet and mobile services will continue to operate as usual in the rest of the country,” the posts said.
Meanwhile, telecom company Nayatel sent out emails offering customers “a reliable landline service” as a workaround in the areas suffering suspended cellphone service.
Khan’s supporters rely heavily on social media to demand his release and use messaging platforms like WhatsApp to share information, including details of events.
PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqas Akram said Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi was traveling to Islamabad in a convoy led by the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ali Amin Gandapur.
“She cannot leave the party workers on their own,” said Akram.
There was a festive mood in Peshawar, with PTI members dancing, drumming and holding up pictures of Khan as cars set off for Islamabad.
The government is imposing social media platform bans and targeting VPN services, according to Internet advocacy group Netblocks. On Sunday, the group said live metrics showed problems with WhatsApp that were affecting media sharing on the app.
The US Embassy issued a security alert for Americans in the capital, encouraging them to avoid large gatherings and warning that even “peaceful gatherings can turn violent.”
Last month, authorities suspended the cellphone service in Islamabad and Rawalpindi to thwart a pro-Khan rally. The shutdown disrupted communications and affected everyday services such as banking, ride-hailing and food delivery.
The latest crackdown comes on the eve of a visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said authorities have sealed off Islamabad’s Red Zone, which houses key government buildings and is the destination for Khan’s supporters.
“Anyone reaching it will be arrested,” Naqvi told a press conference.
He said the security measures were in place to protect residents and property, blaming the PTI for inconveniencing people and businesses.
He added that protesters were planning to take the same route as the Belarusian delegation, but that the government had headed off this scenario.
Naqvi denied cellphone services were suspended and said only mobile data was affected.