Thailand School Shooting Leaves Eight Dead in Nonthaburi

Thailand (GNP): A teenage student killed eight people in Thailand’s Nonthaburi province on Friday in an attack that began at his family home and ended at his school. Police said the 14-year-old suspect, a ninth-grade student, first shot his grandparents dead using his grandfather’s handgun before travelling to Debsirin Nonthaburi School on the outskirts of Bangkok, where he opened fire on staff and classmates.

Lt. Col. Dechrapee Kongdee, the Nonthaburi provincial police commander, said the attacker killed three teachers and three students at the school before taking his own life. Investigators said the suspect fired 26 rounds during the attack, with an additional 34 rounds of ammunition recovered at the scene.

Thailand’s health minister, Pattana Promphat, said 22 people were injured in total, nine of them in critical condition, with some injuries attributed to falls during the panic rather than gunfire.

Witnesses said students sheltered inside classrooms as gunshots rang out from another part of the school before officers reached them and guided them to safety. Debsirin Nonthaburi School, part of a network of secondary schools founded by the Thai royal family, had an enrolment of roughly 3,100 students and 147 teachers in the 2025 academic year, according to district authorities. Its alumni include former prime ministers, scholars and writers.

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The attack marks the second school shooting in Thailand this year, following an incident in February in which a 17-year-old stole a firearm from police and opened fire at a public high school in the south of the country, killing one person.

Thailand has one of the highest rates of civilian gun ownership in the region, with an estimated 10 million firearms in circulation, roughly one for every seven residents. In 2022, a former police officer killed 24 children and 12 adults at a nursery in the country’s north in one of the deadliest mass killings in Thai history.

Opposition leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut of the People’s Party said the shooting should serve as a renewed warning for the country, calling for stronger gun control measures alongside improved security at schools. He offered condolences to the families of those killed and to the injured, while noting that the motive behind Friday’s attack remains unclear.