Thai shooting death toll rises to six

Two more people have been found dead following a weekend shootout in southern Thailand, police said Monday, taking the death toll to six.

Police are hunting two gunmen over the bloodshed in the southern province of Surat Thani, while local media reported that a third was among the dead. 

Authorities found the body of a man in his 20s in a car on Sunday evening, and a woman's body was found on Monday, police officer Ampai Meemassu told AFP. Four people had been confirmed dead on Saturday.

The two newly confirmed victims were identified as the son and wife of one of the suspects, Ampai said.

Thai media reported that the victims and suspects were all part of the same extended family. 

Thailand has high rates of gun ownership and there has been a steady trickle of violent incidents in the past 12 months, including one of the deadliest attacks in recent history.

The kingdom was stunned in October after a former police sergeant murdered 36 people, 24 of them children, in the northeastern Nong Bua Lam Phu province.

And last month, three people were killed and another three wounded in a Phetchaburi province shooting, which ended only after a 15-hour stand-off.

 

AFP