Bangkok (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Five people were killed and a dozen injured throughout the last 24 hours of violence in southern Thailand. Yesterday, in the late evening, three Muslims were shot dead by suspected Islamic militants in Narathiwat, one of three southern provinces bordering Malaysia. The victims, a local government official and two of his friends, were killed as they were having tea. The episode confirms that, despite government overtures, there does not seem to be a way out of the complex crisis.

A few hours ago, the Thai army reported that two people had been killed and 11 injured in another incident this morning, when a bomb went off near a market in Sungai Kolok not far from the border. A soldier and a local resident were killed and the injured are currently in hospital.

Since 2004, separatist violence in the provinces of Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani has claimed 1,600 lives, most of them civilians. The provisional government that was put in place after the military coup d'etat in September has made resolving the crisis in the south one of its main objectives. But stated availability to dialogue does not seem, for now, to have yielded any positive impact.

The Muslim majority region was an independent sultanate until 1902, when Buddhist Thailand annexed it. The masterminds of the violence, which has become a daily occurrence, have not been clearly identified yet. The interests of different groups clash in the area: ethnic Malay separatists, Islamic extremists and criminal gangs, as well as local corrupt officials.