Thailand: 18-Year-Old Armed Gunman Takes Students And Teachers Hostages In School, 3 Injured

Bangkok: A terrifying hostage situation occurred at a school in southern Thailand on Wednesday afternoon after an 18-year-old gunman stormed the campus with a machine gun, injuring the school principal and taking several others hostage.

The incident began shortly after the class ended at Patong Prathan Kiriwat School in the Hat Yai district, near the Malaysian border. 

Witnesses described a chaotic scene as an armed man, reportedly carrying a machine gun, walked onto the grounds and opened fire.

The school's headmaster was shot during the initial rampage. A security guard, who narrowly escaped with a graze wound to his stomach, confirmed that the director was targeted before the gunman retreated into a building with a group of students and at least one teacher.

Police Response 

Hundreds of students were seen fleeing the campus onto nearby roads as special operations forces and local police from the Hat Yai and Thung Lung districts cordoned off the area.

Initial reports from the Thung Lung police suggest the suspect had been behaving erratically earlier in the day, allegedly threatening his mother at a nearby residence before heading to the school.

Gun violence and ownership are not uncommon in Thailand, where a former police officer killed 36 people, including 22 children, in a gun-and-knife attack at a nursery in the country's east in 2022.

This is a developing story.