Devastated families in Thailand gathered Tuesday for the cremation of their loved ones, killed in a nursery massacre that claimed 36 lives — including those of 24 children.
The kingdom has been stunned by the tragedy in northeastern Na Klang province, one of the worst mass killings in its history, with flags at half-mast and King Maha Vajiralongkorn visiting the families of the victims.
At Wat Rat Samakee temple in Na Klang, chanting monks began the ceremony as the exhausted and grieving close-knit rural community prepared to say a final goodbye to 19 of those killed. An incident like this shouldn’t have happened,” said local resident Thanakorn Nueangmatcha, 39, ahead of the funeral at the temple.
Other victims of the attack — perpetrated by a former police officer, who went on to kill his wife and her child before taking his own life — will be cremated at different temples in the area.
At Wat Rat Samakee, incense and the fading scent of hundreds of flower bouquets hung in the air as 19 small brick pyres, decorated with swags of white and black fabric, stood in a line under the hot afternoon sun.
The victims’ families — some protected from the heat of the day by newly erected white-domed canopies — watched as monks walked along the foot of the cremation plots and officials offered up prayers.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha visited the temple complex in the late afternoon, taking part in a small ceremony while monks chanted, before travelling back to the capital.
The funerals, sponsored by the royal household, will end three days of rites that began Saturday.
Tuesday’s mass ceremony is highly unusual — bodies are normally cremated alone — but the area’s small local temples have been overwhelmed by the number of victims. Temporary furnaces have also been set up at other nearby temples, local media reported.
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 intended to interview some 180 witnesses. The attacker, 34-year-old former police sergeant Panya Khamrab, 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.
Source: IOL
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