16 year old Thai boy drowns on birthday while fleeing gang attack

A 16 year old Thai boy drowned in an irrigation canal in the northern province of Chiang Mai on his birthday while fleeing a gang attack.

The family of the teenage victim, named Weeraluck, filed a missing person’s report at Mae Rim Police Station on Tuesday, August 27. Weeraluck’s friends revealed that he had fallen into the irrigation canal at Tung Hua Chang Intersection, prompting rescue divers to search the canal. However, they found no trace of him.

A 19 year old man named Suppaluck later spotted Weeraluck’s body floating in the canal yesterday, August 28. He was wearing a motorcycle helmet, a black jacket, long black jeans, and sneakers. No traces of physical assault were found on his body.

Weeraluck’s friend, identified as Thun, told Channel 7 that teenagers from the Kipsang Banbang gang had attempted to attack Weeraluck, himself, and four other friends, prompting them to flee in different directions. Thun reported that the gang was armed with a baseball bat, a samurai sword, and ping pong bombs.

Thun admitted that his primary concern was his survival, so he kept running and did not think about his friends. He saw Weeraluck jump into the water but did not anticipate that he would drown. After the incident, Thun did not hear from Weeraluck and assumed he had found somewhere to hide.

The police investigated the case and discovered that at least ten teenage boys were involved. Weeraluck and the attackers had previously been friends as part of a group called No Black, which later split into two gangs: Kipsang Banbang and Rung Jone.

The police noted that these two groups had clashed several times before and had also challenged each other to fights on social media.

In a related report, a first-year vocational student was stabbed by a group of his rivals in the Bang Bua Thong district of Nonthaburi province. He was severely injured and rushed to a nearby hospital, but his condition has not been updated to the public.

Another teenager was shot and beaten to death with a baseball bat by his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend in the northern province of Phitsanulok because the attacker found out that the victim was still in contact with his ex-girlfriend.