𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

BANGKOK — A gunman shot and killed his grandparents before killing multiple people and himself at a school outside Bangkok on Friday, authorities in Thailand said, in the Southeast Asian nation’s worst mass killing since 2022.

The perpetrator was identified as a student, but officials from different government ministries gave conflicting figures for the number of people he killed at the school though some said it was as high as six.

Police said at least 15 people were injured in the shooting at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province, north of Bangkok. Two were in critical condition they said.

Police said the gunman had fired at least 26 rounds and that 34 other rounds of ammunition were found at the scene. They said they had recovered a 9mm handgun believed to belong to his grandfather.

One 18-year-old student told Reuters that at first he thought he was hearing firecrackers.

“Then it started getting more frequent, like ‘bang, bang, bang’ and then it went quiet at one point,” the unnamed student said. “And the shooting started again.”

In a statement, the school said the shooting had “shaken the hearts” of students, parents, teachers and others.

The government said Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul had directed relevant agencies to provide immediate and comprehensive support to all those affected.

“We rushed to care for the injured and I have dispatched the relevant personnel to handle the situation at the site,” he told reporters. “This is very terrible, it is something that should not have happened.”

It is the second school shooting in Thailand this year.

One teacher was killed and a student was injured in February at a school in the southern district of Hat Yai.

In recent years there has been a series of deadly shootings at schools and other locations in Thailand, where gun ownership is common.

Last year, six people were killed when a man opened fire at a Bangkok market before taking his own life.

In 2023, a 14-year-old killed two people and injured five others in a shooting at a luxury mall in Bangkok.

The previous year, a former police officer killed 36 people during a three-hour shooting and stabbing spree in the country’s northeast. Among his victims were 22 children he stabbed at a day care center.

A Thai soldier also killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020.

After the 2023 mall shooting, Anutin, who was interior minister at the time, enacted a one-year ban on the issue of new personal gun licenses and suspended public carry permits, among other gun control measures. The suspension of public carry permits was extended earlier this year.

“This is the reason why the government doesn’t allow arm carrying and extension of gun licenses,” Anutin said Friday. “This is the reason why.”

As of 2017 Thai civilians were estimated to possess about 10.3 million firearms, or about 15 per 100 residents, according to the Small Arms Survey, a Swiss group that favors gun control. That compared with more than 393 million firearms in civilian possession in the United States, or 120.5 per 100 residents.

Nat Sumon reported from Bangkok, and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.