By Xinhua,
Bangkok : Fifty-five schools in Thailand’s southernmost province of Yala closed on Thursday after a principal in the district was murdered by suspected insurgents on Wednesday.
Most of the closed schools are in Raman district after some 200 teachers joined a meeting on Thursday to demand that authorities increase security measures in the region.
The 54-year-old director of the Baan Mahae school, Weera Muanjan, was shot dead when he was riding a motorcycle on his way home Wednesday.
The incident caused panic among teachers in the three southernmost provinces, local newspaper Bangkok Post said on its website.
Schools in the district were scheduled to open on Monday.
Thailand’s three southernmost provinces — Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani have been troubled with insurgency-related violence, which has claimed more than 3,500 lives since it resumed in early 2004.