Hundreds have canceled holidays in southern Thailand after a series of weekend blasts ripped apart a tourist area, killing four people and wounding dozens, officials said yesterday.
"Malaysian and Singapore[an] tourists, who are majority of our customers, have canceled their reservations, citing the bomb scares," a receptionist at Hat Yai's Novotel Central Hotel said. "Before this, we were fully booked every weekend."
Thai police have yet to make any arrests over Saturday's attacks in the main southern tourist hub of Hat Yai.
PHOTO: AFP
The unrest continued on Sunday night as militants torched school buildings, including a daycare center, and destroyed several vehicles.
An attempt to bomb a military convoy in southern Thailand's Narathiwat province -- one of three Muslim-majority provinces gripped by an Islamic insurgency -- was also made, police said.
No one was hurt in the attacks, which police said were meant to spread fear among a nervous population that has already been shaken by daily shootings and bombings.
More than 1,400 people have been killed since January 2004, and experts warn the violence appears to be intensifying.
Saturday's bombings killed four people -- three Thais and a Canadian, who was the first foreigner to die in the insurgency.
Thailand's Health Minister, Pinit Jarusombat, said 14 other foreigners were among the 72 wounded, including six Malaysians, three Singaporeans, three Britons, an Indian and an American.
The bombers targeted bars and restaurants popular with tourists in what experts say marked an escalation in the insurgency, which had so far targeted mainly police or military, but not foreigners.
Officials warned that with the latest attacks, the region's tourism sector has been dealt a serious blow.
"Apart from the cancelation of existing bookings, we are afraid that the latest attack in Songkhla [Province] would affect ... tourists' decision to come to Thailand," Apichart Sankary, president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, said.
Thailand's Tourism Authority called yesterday for more security measures at airports and tourist destinations.
On Sunday, Thailand's Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn made a rare public visit to Hat Yai where he spoke with residents and tourists, offering the royal family's support.
Thailand's US$12 billion-a-year tourism sector is only just recovering from the Christmas 2004 tsunami, which devastated much of the kingdom's western coastline.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
A man has survived clinging to the outside of an Austrian high-speed train, Austria’s state railway said on Sunday, reportedly after it left while he was having a cigarette break. The man late on Saturday grabbed onto the outside of the train at St Poelten, west of Vienna, and was later taken onboard after the train performed an emergency stop, railways spokesman Herbert Hofer said. “It is irresponsible, this kind of thing usually ends up with someone dying,” he said. “And you’re not just putting yourself in danger, if you end up under the train there’s rescuers, there’s police, fire
RSS