A former police officer shoots at least 34 people, including 22 children, at an infant school in Thailand

At least 34 people, of which at least 22 were young children, were killed in a shooting at a nursery school in the town of Uthai Sawan, in the northeastern Thai province of Nong Bua Lamphu, on Thursday, according to a police spokesman.

A statement from the security body reported after that the author of the shots is a former police officer, identified as Panya Khanrab, who committed suicide after perpetrating the massacre, whose victims include his wife and his son.

Another 12 people were injured.

The Thai government and police had previously reported that the attacker was being pursued, but the Thai media advanced the news, later confirmed by the police on their Facebook account, that the perpetrator of the massacre had committed suicide after kill his family and the other victims.

This 34-year-old former police officer had been expelled from the force in 2021 for drug possession.

Former police officer Panya Khamrab, alleged perpetrator of the school massacre, in a photo from Thailand's central bureau of investigation.

HANDOUT (AFP)

About 30 children were at the school when the gunman entered at lunchtime, Thai official Jidapa Boonsom told Reuters.

The man fired an automatic rifle first at four or five staff members, including a teacher who was eight months pregnant, Jidapa reported.

"At first people thought they were fireworks," added this official.

After perpetrating the massacre in this school that generally welcomes children between 2 and 5 years old, the former police officer fled in a van, before committing suicide, also by shooting himself.

The images provided by the Thai police show dozens of bodies scattered throughout different rooms of the educational center.

Videos posted on social media show what appear to be the bodies of children covered in sheets lying in pools of blood.

Many of the injured have been transferred to the Nong Bua Lamphu hospital, which has "urgently" requested that citizens donate blood of all types, according to local media.

The images and videos that circulate on social networks also show relatives of the victims, in despair, around the hospital compound.

Thailand's gun ownership rate is high compared to other countries in the region, although official figures do not include a large number of illegal weapons, many of which have been brought into the country through its porous borders.

Shootings in Thailand are rare, but in 2020, a soldier who had failed to finalize a real estate deal he hoped would go through killed at least 29 people and wounded 57 others in an attack in four different locations.

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