Thai teacher shot, killed

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BANGKOK, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- A teacher was shot and killed Wednesday as he monitored the student lunchroom, the 158th instructor killed in Thailand's Deep South since 2004, officials said.

The victim, 51-year-old Chonlathee Charoenchol, was found lying in blood near the entrance of the school cafeteria with two gunshot wounds to the head, the Bangkok Post reported.

Police said one of four gunmen pretended to be a parent of a pupil, approached Charoenchol and fired on him.

Witnesses said Chonlathee and other teachers were monitoring lunch time for the 292 students at Ban Tanyong School in Narathiwat province's Bacho district.

Also Wednesday, in Narathiwat's Rueso district, a soldier was seriously wounded when he was shot while boarding a truck, the Post said.

Police said a gunman fired on a security team assigned to escort teachers to work were boarding a truck at a tea shop. Officials said a gunman hiding in a nearby rubber plantation fired a round from an M16 rifle, striking the last man boarding the truck.

In another attack, two men riding on a motorcycle fired on a truck carrying seven children to kindergarten in Rueso district, police said.

Deep South Watch, which monitors the violence in the area, reported more than 5,000 people have been killed and at least 9,000 injured in Thailand's southernmost provinces since January 2004, when separatist violence picked up in the Muslim-majority region.