NA KLANG, Thailand — Devastated families
gathered Tuesday for the cremation of their loved ones killed in a Thai nursery
massacre that claimed 36 lives including 24 children.
اضافة اعلان
Thailand has been left stunned by the tragedy in the
northeastern province of
Nong Bua Lam Phu, one of the worst mass killings in
the country’s history.
As night fell Tuesday at Wat Rat Samakee temple in
the Na Klang district where the attack took place, the exhausted and grieving
community said a final goodbye as 19 funeral pyres were set ablaze with monks
chanting.
Police officers had carried the coffins outside in
the dusky light, laying them on top of specially built brick pyres decorated
with white and black fabric.
Sobbing families escorted the smallest of the
coffins, placing portraits, toys and flowers beside them before the items were
removed as the pyres were lit and the crowd quietened.
“An incident like this shouldn’t have happened,”
said local Thanakorn Nueangmatcha, 39, ahead of the funeral.
“They were only children.”
Other victims of the attack will be cremated at
different temples in the area.
A former police officer armed with a gun and knife
went on a rampage through the nursery on Thursday before going on to kill his
wife and child and taking his own life.
Prime Minister
Prayut Chan-O-Cha visited the temple
complex on Tuesday, taking part in a small ceremony while monks chanted, before
travelling back to the Thai capital.
It followed a visit on Friday by King Maha
Vajiralongkorn who met families of the victims in a hospital.
The funerals, sponsored by the royal household, end
three days of rites that began Saturday.
The mass ceremony is highly unusual as bodies are
normally cremated alone — but the area’s small local temples have been
overwhelmed by the number of victims.
Temporary furnaces have also been set up at other
nearby temples, local media reported.
‘The old way’
The close-knit rural community had already come together on Monday as
volunteers, soldiers and officials mixed cement and spread gravel to prepare a
field inside the temple complex for the cremations.
They were working
to build the pyres in the style traditionally seen in
Thailand’s northeast,
said Maemon Meeyuan, grandmother of one of the victims.
“We’re doing it the
old way,” she told AFP.
Prayut has ordered
an investigation into the massacre, with police saying they intend to interview
about 180 witnesses.
The attacker,
34-year-old sacked police sergeant Panya Khamrab, was dismissed from his post
earlier this year on a drugs charge, with locals saying they suspected he was a
methamphetamine addict.
However,
preliminary tests found he did not have drugs in his system at the time of the
killings.
At the temple ahead
of the funerals, 75-year-old Komma Charoenchai said he was “still shocked” by
the tragedy but added that people must “let authorities handle the matter”.
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