Suffocation cited in most deaths

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BANGKOK -- At least 84 Muslim protesters died, mostly from suffocation so severe their eyes bled, after being arrested and locked in army trucks following clashes with security forces in the south, officials said yesterday.

"Seventy-eight people were found dead on arrival in the vans at the military camp," Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunan, a Justice Ministry pathologist, said.

"They showed bleeding in the eyes, in the white part of the eyeballs, and bleeding on the body underneath the skin, only tiny spots of bleeding" which are evidence of "suffocation," Dr. Pornthip said.

She examined the corpses with a team of other doctors at the military camp in the southern province of Pattani.

The deaths occurred on Monday after security forces fired live ammunition, tear gas and water cannons at more than 2,000 angry people in nearby Narathiwat province, including some who stormed the Tak Bai district police station.

Moderate Islamic leaders accused Thai troops of overreacting to the protest and they warned that an upswing in violence could follow.

"I am in shock," Abdulraman Abdulsamad, chairman of the Islamic Council of Narathiwat, told the Associated Press. "I cannot say what is going to happen, but I believe that hell will break out."

In a potential hint of what is to come, suspected Islamist militants riding on motorcycles shot and wounded six persons yesterday in separate drive-by attacks in other parts of Narathiwat.

The clashes began when about 2,000 protesters demanded the release of six Muslim men who were jailed on suspicion of stealing weapons from pro-government volunteers.

During several hours of clashes, when protesters attempted to storm the police station, at least six persons died from bullet wounds, officials said Monday.

About 1,300 people were arrested and taken away in army vehicles.

The 78 additional deaths occurred after the arrested people were locked inside "many vans" that "belong to the army," Dr. Pornthip said in the interview by cell phone while she was investigating the deaths in Pattani.

"They were all males. There were no gunshot wounds on the bodies," said Dr. Pornthip, who was honored by Thailand's king in 2003 for her nationwide forensic work.

"From the medical examination, nearly 80 percent of [the dead] showed signs of asphyxiation, and 20 percent of them showed convulsion, maybe caused by electrolyte imbalance, dehydration and heat stroke while in the vans," she said.

Asphyxiation, or suffocation, occurs from an extreme decrease in oxygen in a person's body accompanied by an increase of carbon dioxide, and can be caused by a lack of air, choking, drowning, electric shock, injury, or the inhalation of toxic gases.

"When they collapsed, they cannot move," Dr. Pornthip said of the victims who perished in the trucks amid tropical heat before the army vehicles' doors were unlocked and officials discovered piles of bodies.

"After we brought people who were arrested into detention, we found that another 78 people were dead," Thailand's Justice Ministry spokesman Manit Suthaporn told reporters in Pattani yesterday.

"According to the investigation of the dead bodies, they died because of suffocation," Mr. Manit said.