The assailant, who was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and a knife, opened fire on the childcare facility in Nong Bua Lam Phu province at 12:30 p.m. (0530 GMT) before leaving in a vehicle, according to the police.

“The de@th toll from the shooting incident is at least 30 people,” said Anucha Burapachaisri, a spokesperson for Thailand’s prime minister’s office.

Panya Khamrab, a police lieutenant colonel who was fired from the service last year for drug addiction, was identified as the gunman by police colonel Jakkapat Vijitraithaya from the region where the incident occurred.

According to Jakkapat, the fatalities included 23 youngsters aged two to three years old. The massacre came less than a month after a serving army officer fatally shot two colleagues at a military training camp near Bangkok. Despite the fact that Thailand has a high prevalence of gun ownership, major shootings are relatively rare.

According to the Bangkok Post, at least two such examples of shooting kill*ngs by serving troops have occurred in the last year.

In 2020, a soldier killed murdered 29 people in a 17-hour spree and injured dozens more before being shot de@d by commandos in one of the kingdom’s bl0odiest tragedies in recent years. The upper brass of the military tried hard to depict the ass*ssin as a wayward soldier.