Teachers in the nursery had put the children down for their nap by the time Panya arrived at around 12.30pm.

He attacked people in the courtyard, shooting some, slashing others with a long blade that farmers use for hacking crops.

Several people were killed there.

“Everything happened so quickly and there was blood everywhere,” said office worker Kittisak Polprakap, 29.

“I saw the wounded and dead sitting together at a table as if nothing had happened.”

People ran. Two female employees, Jidapha Boonsom, 48, and Saowaluk Keeta, 25, dashed into an office looking out onto the nursery.

Some staff called the police but were told they were busy elsewhere.

Panya shot twice at the nursery door and kicked it open, a witness told media. For about 20 minutes he went from room to room, shooting teachers and slashing the children with his machete.

Some teachers fled over a wall but not Supaporn Pramongmook, 26, who was eight months pregnant.

Another teacher, Maliwan Lasopha, tried to plead with Panya. They had played together as children.

He killed them both.

“THE OLD WAY”

The reeling community came together on Monday once again 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 of Thailand’s northeast, said Maemon Meeyuan, a grandmother of one of the victims.

“We’re doing it the old way,” she told AFP Monday.

Prayut has ordered an investigation, with police stating that they intend to interview about 180 witnesses.

The attacker, 34-year-old former police sergeant Panya Khramrab, was dismissed from his post earlier this year on a drugs charge with locals claiming they suspected he was a methamphetamine addict.

However, preliminary tests found he did not have drugs in his system at the time of the assault.

At the temple ahead of the funeral, 75-year-old Komma Charoenchai said he was “still shocked” by the nursery assault.

But he said the community must “let the authorities handle the matter”.

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand: Makeshift furnaces made of clay bricks were being built on Monday (Oct 10) at Buddhist temples in a town in northeastern Thailand to cremate the bodies of the mostly young victims of last Thursday’s nursery massacre.

The brutal gun and and knife attack by a former policeman at the Young Children’s Development Center in Uthai Sawan left 36 people dead, including 24 young children. It was the biggest mass killing by an individual in the country’s history.

Phra Kru Adisal Kijjanuwat, abbot of the Rat Samakee temple, about 3km from the scene of the bloodshed, said 19 victims will be cremated in a group ceremony on Tuesday, bringing an end to a three-day mourning ceremony for the families.

He said the bodies would be cremated at the same time on charcoal-fueled open-air pyres to spare the families from having to wait long hours for successive ceremonies to be completed.

“We only have one furnace at the temple and we wouldn’t be able to cremate all victims at the same time, and I do not wish for any family to have to wait for a lengthy cremation process,” Adisal said.

“After seeing their grief, I thought it would be better if we can hold the ceremony at the same time and that all relatives can go through this final stage of this painful event together,” he said.

SECURITY FORCE REFORM?

This massacre has happened just ahead of the next election, which is scheduled for the first half of next year. Politicians are starting to get into campaign mode.

In the past, opposition parties have occasionally campaigned on issues around reforming the security forces, and in recent years there have been signs the government wants to be seen to be doing things on this issue.

One such topic has been that of military conscription – all men over 21 years of age in the country must register for the draft, which takes the form of a lottery every April.

This practice is very unpopular, and became a political issue in the last election. The military has floated ways to scale back conscription, but whether changes will actually be implemented is another matter.

My studies of the Thai military over a long period suggest such announcements are often quietly shelved later.

Indeed there’s relatively little oversight of the security forces, because of the country’s governance – in many respects, the military is the government. Other agencies of the government are reluctant to put any pressure on the security forces, as is the country’s anti corruption commission. Military reform is left to the military itself.

From dawn on Sunday, families of the victims gathered at the temples where bodies are being kept in coffins. They brought treats for the souls of the dead, according to local traditions, including food, milk and toys.

Later in the day they sat for a Buddhist ceremony at the nursery, where mourners have left white floral wreaths and more presents.

At Ammy’s home, her mother said she believed spirits had protected her little girl.

“My kid is not a deep sleeper,” Panompai said. “I believe there must be some spirits covering her eyes and ears. We have different beliefs, but to me, I think it protected my kid.”

Another relative told local media Ammy’s survival was a “miracle”.

But the family had to break the news to her that her beloved best friend, two-year-old Techin, and her teacher were dead. “She was asking her grandmother, ‘Why don’t you pick up Techin from school?’,” Panompai said.

She does not yet know the full extent of the tragedy she lived through.

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand: Thai police are investigating a report that a CNN crew inappropriately entered the daycare centre where more than 20 pre-schoolers were slain as they were reporting on the attack, authorities said Sunday (Oct 9).

Danaichok Boonsom, head of the local township administration, told reporters as he left the Na Klang district police station that he had submitted his report on the incident alleging unauthorised entry onto the government property, and that police were investigating.

“Let the legal process run its course, I don’t want to disclose all the details,” he said. “Let the police do their work investigating.”

Authorities began looking into the incident after a Thai reporter posted an image on social media of two members of the crew leaving the scene, with one climbing over the low wall and fence around the compound, over police tape, and the other already outside.

CNN tweeted that the crew had entered the premises when the police cordon had been removed from the centre, and were told by three public health officials exiting the building that they could film inside.

“The team gathered footage inside the centre for around 15 minutes, then left,” CNN said in its tweet. “During this time, the cordon had been set back in place, so the team needed to climb over the fence at the centre to leave.”

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha is expected to attend an evening prayer at one of the temples later Sunday.

The mass killing on Thursday was the nation’s deadliest, with the perpetrator killing dozens at the Young Children’s Development Center in Uthai Sawan and wounding several others. He then left the daycare center and drove home, where he killed his wife and son before taking his own life.

Police identified the attacker as Panya Kamrap, 34, a former police sergeant fired earlier this year because of a drug charge involving methamphetamine.

An employee at the day care told Thai media that Panya’s son had attended the center but hadn’t been there for about a month. Police have said they believe Panya was under stress from tensions between him and his wife, and money problems.

Mass killings in Thailand are rare but not unheard of.

In 2020, a disgruntled soldier opened fire in and around a mall in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima, killing 29 people and holding off security forces for some 16 hours before being killed by them.

Prior to that, a 2015 bombing was carried out at a shrine in Bangkok that killed 20 people, allegedly by human traffickers in retaliation for a crackdown on their network.

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand: Grieving families gathered Sunday (Oct 9) at a Buddhist temple to pray and make offerings to the spirits of their deceased toddlers who were killed amid a rampage by a former police officer who shot and slashed them with knives at their day care in northeastern Thailand last week.

The mourning family members gathered at Rat Samakee temple, one of three temples where the bodies of the 36 victims — 24 of them children and most of them pre-schoolers — will be placed for funeral rites and cremation on Tuesday.

Relatives sat in front of the tiny coffins, praying while Buddhist monks around them chanted prayers. Later, they placed trays of food, toys and milk along the outside of the temple walls as offerings to the spirits of their slain children.

“Today, all the relatives will hold a ceremony to guide children’s souls back to the temple,” said Panida Prawana, a relative of a victim.

The mourning ceremony will continue for three days before the funerals and a cremation of the bodies according to Buddhist tradition.

Around a low fence surrounding the single-storey, pink-roofed nursery where just a few days ago youngsters played happily, piles of flowers built up, AFP reported.

Monchai owns a stone mill in the sub-district of Uthai Sawan, Nong Bua Lamphu, where the massacre took place. 

The assailant, later identified as a former policeman, murdered dozens of people at the nursery and surrounding areas. Most of them were young children sleeping inside the childcare centre when he broke in with weapons and went on a killing spree.

The youngest victim was three years old.

“It wasn’t clear at that time what was happening, so I thought while the situation was still volatile, the (primary school) students should come to my place as it would be definitely be safe for them,” said Monchai.

Together with his wife and two employees, he rushed to the school in two four-wheel drives. They chose a route largely unknown even among locals, that leads to the back of the school but with terrain that is rough and difficult to navigate.

“There are two routes to the school. One is rough and requires a four-wheel drive. The other one is actually fine too but there were chances that we would run into the perpetrator,” Monchai explained.

“So, I chose the back route, which is rough and requires a four-wheel drive, because I know for sure how to manage that.”

“The customers were saying someone was shooting. I just stood there, not sure what to do. I was shaken and scared,” said the 48-year-old.  

“I left the storefront and just stayed inside my house. I locked the door and didn’t emerge. The road was empty. There were no kids, nobody, only big vehicles of the authorities driving past.”

Thongmuan also rushed her 21-year-old daughter inside the house, along with her son-in-law. 

“I feel speechless. I feel so sorry for the kids. They didn’t know anything. How could he do that?“ she said. 

“I still get startled. It wouldn’t go away. Whenever there is loud noise made by cars outside, I’d feel like I have a heart attack. I’d feel startled. This had never happened to me until yesterday.”

The food seller never expected violence like this in her neighborhood, just like Jeeran. 

When he heard the news on Thursday, he told his wife to take their granddaughter to their son’s house 3km away, as he was not sure if the assailant would return to the scene and harm more people. 

“We often go to the nursery. At weekends, we would also take her to that area to play because we live just close by and our fields are here,”

After the tragedy, however, Jeeran is considering taking his granddaughter to a different nursery as he feels the one she usually goes to is no longer safe. 

“Nobody thought someone would go there and do that,” he said. 

“The assailant had also brought his child to the nursery. So, the teachers thought he just came to get some milk.”