Thailand: fatal shooting in Bangkok, teenager arrested

A shooting at one of the country's busiest shopping malls left at least two people dead and several wounded, some in serious condition. The shooter is in custody. He is a minor of 14 years of age.

A general view shows the exterior of the Siam Paragon luxury mall after Thai police arrested an armed teenager suspected of killing foreigners and wounding others during a shooting, in Bangkok, Thailand, October 3, 2023. © Jorge Silva / Reuters

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At least two people, one Chinese and the other Burmese, were killed and five others wounded in a shooting in Bangkok. The gunman, a 14-year-old boy, was apprehended after an hour after the first shots were fired with a handgun, around 16 p.m., the peak attendance time of this luxury shopping center in downtown Bangkok. Soon, dozens of ambulances arrived to help the injured. Videos posted by police on social media show the killer, haggard and confused, reports our correspondent in Bangkok, Carol Isoux.

The fourteen-year-old suffers from mental disorders and had not taken his medication, the police chief said. He told police he heard the order to shoot. Educated at a renowned private college in the capital, he wears long hair and a cap bearing the image of the flag of the United States, which already leads some commentators to deplore an Americanization of Thai society.

The shooting sparked scenes of panic in the mall, with witnesses recounting the hasty evacuation of hundreds of people. Located in the heart of Bangkok, Siam Paragon is a tourist and commercial hotspot that attracts many visitors, especially Chinese, in a context of rebound of tourism in Thailand after the pandemic.

Almost half of firearms are unregistered

The problem of the large number of firearms in circulation is a matter of concern in Thailand, even though the number of mass shootings is far from that of the United States. The country is preparing to commemorate at the end of the week, Friday, October 6, the massacre in a nursery last year, which had seen the death of thirty children, in the north of the country. A former police officer killed 36 people, most of them children under five, in a nursery, during a deadly journey with rifles and knives that lasted more than three hours.

Armed robberies continue to claim victims almost every week in the kingdom, with little legal change. Thailand (70 million inhabitants) had about ten million firearms in 2017, of which nearly four million are not registered with the authorities, according to the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss research program.

In 2020, a shooting at a shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima left 29 people dead.

(

And with AFP)

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