An ex-policeman has killed at least 38 people, most of them children, in a gun and knife attack at a pre-school daycare centre in north-east Thailand.
BBC News reports that children and adults are among the casualties at the nursery – police say the attacker shot and stabbed his victims before fleeing the scene.
The former officer, aged 34, was sacked in June for drug use, police said.
A teacher who survived the attack told Thailand’s Thairath TV the gunman used to drop off his child at the nursery and had seemed polite. A motive for the attack remains unclear.
At least 22 children were among the dead in the mass killing in the town of Utthai Sawan. Some victims aged as young as two were attacked as they slept. A dozen people who were injured have been taken to Nong Bua Lamphu district hospital.
Police named the attacker as Panya Kamrab, a local man who had been a police lieutenant colonel before he was dismissed last year for drug use. He is understood to have appeared in court on Thursday on charges related to the use and possible sale of methamphetamine.
