South Thailand News

Southern Thailand news, Phuket news, Koh Samui news, and Krabi updates—stay informed on business, tourism, and local events from Trang, Songkhla, Yala, and beyond. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Southern Thailand news source.

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  • National Covid-19 figures with 1 additional death (June 2)

    National Covid-19 figures with 1 additional death (June 2)

    Today the Centre of Covid-19 Administration reported 1 new Covi-19 case and 1 addition death in Thailand. This takes the total number of infections to 3,085 and the accumulated death toll to 58. The additional fatality was an 80 year old Thai man living in Narathiwat and the latest patient was a 32 year old male student who had recently…

  • Southern mayor backs bounty for shark hunt after boy’s foot was bitten

    Southern mayor backs bounty for shark hunt after boy’s foot was bitten

    People are searching for a shark after it bit a boy’s foot at the Chebilang pier in the southern province of Satun. The Chebilang mayor Mahmadneesum Bilungload even said he’ll give a cash reward of 1,000 baht to whoever catches the shark. He took a long tail boat out on Saturday afternoon to scope out the scene and try and…

  • Suspect in Phattalung murder commits suicide as police close in

    Suspect in Phattalung murder commits suicide as police close in

    A murder suspect in Thailand’s southern Trang province committed suicide as police moved to arrest him yesterday. Authorities say he was one of three gunmen in the murder of a driver in neighbouring Phatttalung province last year. 40 year old Haron Usen was hiding out with his girlfriend in a house in tambon Bang Sak. Provincial and local police surrounded…

  • Transport Company interprovincial bus services to the South remain suspended

    Transport Company interprovincial bus services to the South remain suspended

    Transport Company, Thailand’s interprovincial bus company, announced this week that it is continuing its suspension of all services to the southern provinces as the country will be under the state of emergency until June 30. It did not say when services will resume. The company was expected to resume services from Bangkok to Koh Samui, Phuket and Trang from June…

  • Son stabs father multiple times in Nakhon Si Thammarat

    Son stabs father multiple times in Nakhon Si Thammarat

    A father was stabbed 9 times by his son yesterday in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat. The Bangkok Post reports the 25 year old son was high on drugs and acting erratic. His 53 year old father tried to calm him down, but the son took out a knife and stabbed his father multiple times. The father, a…

  • 5 Thai students test positive for Covid-19 after returning from Saudi Arabia

    5 Thai students test positive for Covid-19 after returning from Saudi Arabia

    5 students, who returned to Thailand from Saudi Arabia via Malaysia, have now been confirmed as being infected with the Covid-19 virus. The students are part of a group of 39 returning citizens who arrived back in the country via the Padang Besar road checkpoint at the Malaysian border. All 39 are reported to be in mandatory state quarantine at…

  • Surat Thani police extortion case – police chief promises swift and thorough investigation

    Surat Thani police extortion case – police chief promises swift and thorough investigation

    Police in the southern Surat Thani province have been ordered to speed up their internal investigation into allegations that 3 of their officers demanded 5 million baht from a trader to drop charges relating to the purchase of seafood from local fishermen. The report will be submitted to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. A spokesman said today that the investigation is…

  • 19 kilograms of crystal meth, valued around 10 million baht, seized on Thai train

    19 kilograms of crystal meth, valued around 10 million baht, seized on Thai train

    2 people are in custody and 19 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine or “ya ice” has been seized after it was discovered in their bags on an express train from Bangkok to the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat last night. 22 year old Ekkapong Kaewsa, of Bangkok, and his female companion 23 year old Methanee Suparb from Si Sa Ket,…

  • Last Covid-19 patient in Songklanagarind hospital sent home

    Last Covid-19 patient in Songklanagarind hospital sent home

    A hospital on the front lines fighting Covid-19 in the Hat Yai district of the southern province of Songkhla has released its last remaining Covid-19 patient. The patient was sent home yesterday, after making a full recovery. According to the staff at Songklanagarind Hospital, the patient fell critically ill in his home province of Narathiwat and had to be transferred…

  • Thailand’s new Covid-19 cases – May 19

    Thailand’s new Covid-19 cases – May 19

    Today Dr Taweesilp Visanuyothin, spokesman of the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, reported 2 additional cases of Covid-19 bringing the total number of cases in Thailand to 3,033. No further deaths have been confirmed today, leaving the accumulated toll at 56. No additional patients were discharged from hospital in the past 24 hours, leaving the number of recovered patients at 2,857 cases. The…

  • Woman accidentally shot during father-son fight in Nakhon Si Thammarat

    Woman accidentally shot during father-son fight in Nakhon Si Thammarat

    A man accidentally shot and killed his daughter-in-law during a fight with his son last night in southern Thailand. After a heated argument around 7:30 pm Sunday, a father got out a shotgun to shoot his son, but the trigger failed, Thai media reports. The son, 33 year old Niran Rakkaew, then tried to grab the in the gun from his…

  • Nakhon Si Thammarat gangster arrested over murder of wife’s lover

    Nakhon Si Thammarat gangster arrested over murder of wife’s lover

    Police in the southern Thai province of Nakhon Si Thammarat have arrested a 32 year old local gangster and drug dealer for the murder of a 41 year old criminal associate last Tuesday. The incident took place in the evening, on the side of the road in the Klai sub-district of Tha Sala district. They identified the suspect as Sunathorn…

  • Truck overturns in Songkhla, injuring 12

    Truck overturns in Songkhla, injuring 12

    12 seafood processing factory workers were injured after the pickup truck they were travelling in burst a tyre, rammed into a roadside lamppost, and overturned. The incident occurred in the southern province of Songkhla this morning. Authorities say the crash happened on Ramot-Songkhla Road in tambon Muang Ngam. Police and rescue workers rushed to the scene to find an Isuzu…

  • 4 alleged gang members arrested, more than a million speed pills seized

    4 alleged gang members arrested, more than a million speed pills seized

    Police today announced the arrest of 3 members of a drug gang at 2 houses in Bangkok, and a fourth in the southern Narathiwat province on the Malaysian border. More than a million methamphetamine pills were seized. Police say the houses were used to store drugs smuggled from Laos. A combined team of soldiers, police and officials from the Office…

  • Strange pineapple tree worshipped by plantation owner in Songkhla

    Strange pineapple tree worshipped by plantation owner in Songkhla

    The owners of a rubber plantation in the southern province of Songkhla today reported they had found a strange pineapple tree on their farm. “It looks like 15 pineapple trees merged together as one.” Reports from Thai media reveal that after the discovery of the fascinating tree, Phanchakonrat and her husband had brought flowers, incense and candles to worship it,…

  • Naked man steals motorbike in Nakhon Si Thammarat – VIDEO

    Naked man steals motorbike in Nakhon Si Thammarat – VIDEO

    On Sunday a completely naked man seized a motorcycle from a shocked woman in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat and rode away on it. Police found him yesterday at a nearby market, still without clothes. The incident occurred in broad daylight and in full view of witnesses. It was recorded and posted on Facebook and, predictably, went viral. The…

  • Phuket bus driver shares government quarantine facility with coffin

    Phuket bus driver shares government quarantine facility with coffin

    A bus driver who left Phuket to return to his home city of Trang was left feeling a little, well, uneasy when he realised he would be sharing his government quarantine facilities with a coffin. Were the authorities just ‘planning ahead’? Or just a ‘whoops’ moment? The man had left Phuket as part of the exodus of some 50,000 people…

  • Human Rights Watch says Thailand should free detained migrants

    Human Rights Watch says Thailand should free detained migrants

    A significant number of migrants in Thailand’s Songkhla immigration detention centre have the coronavirus and the Human Rights Watch is saying all them should be free due to the dangers of the coronavirus pot the other detainees. In an article urging the release of the migrants, the HRW said the virus infections “spread like wildfire in squalid lockup” and that…

  • Spaniard arrested for brutal Koh Phangan murder

    Spaniard arrested for brutal Koh Phangan murder

    Police in the southern Surat Thani province have arrested a Spanish man on the island of Koh Phangan for the stabbing death of a Chilean man. Authorities say the brutal murder took place at 1am yesterday. Officers say when they arrived at the scene of the murder, a rented house on Koh Phangan, they found 31 year old Chang San…

  • Dozens of staff at Narathiwat hospital quarantined

    Dozens of staff at Narathiwat hospital quarantined

    62 staff of a hospital in the southern Narathiwat province, bordering Malaysia, are now in quarantine after making contact with a man who arrived with flu-like symptoms and later tested positive for Covid-19. The hospital’s director says that a 45 year old man from Waeng district walked into the hospital on May 30 to be treated for flu. “He stayed…

  • First month in 16 years with no insurgency attacks in Thailand

    First month in 16 years with no insurgency attacks in Thailand

    Last month was the first in 16 years in which there were no insurgent attacks on Thai forces or civilians, either in Thailand’s restive Deep South or elsewhere. The country’s three Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat, all around Malaysia’s northern border, have been embroiled in a bloody separatist insurgency for the best part of two decades. More…

  • 3 suspected insurgents killed in Pattani

    3 suspected insurgents killed in Pattani

    Authorities shot and killed 3 suspected insurgents on Thursday in Pattani province in Thailand’s deep South, long the home of a bloody separatist insurgency. Security forces believe the men were planning to mount an attack during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The shootings are the first act of violence since Malaysia’s Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or National Revolutionary Front rebels…

  • Surat Thani governor confirms that residents coming back from Phuket will be quarantined

    Surat Thani governor confirms that residents coming back from Phuket will be quarantined

    With the exodus of people from Phuket heading back to their home provinces, officials from Surat Thani have confirmed that they will be quarantined at home for 14 days when they arrive. Surat Thani is about a 3-4 hour drive northeast from Phuket. The Surat Thani governor Witchawut Jinto has ordered all district chiefs in the province to quarantine visitors…

  • Attempted murder charge for hit-and-run Mitsubishi driver

    Attempted murder charge for hit-and-run Mitsubishi driver

    In a follow-up to a story previously reported in The Thaiger, police in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat are charging the driver of a Mitsubishi Mirage with attempted murder after he ran into a policeman, then sped off with the officer still clinging to the hood of his car. The officer held on for dear life as the…

  • 2 Songkhla immigration officers infected with Covid-19, 70 at risk

    2 Songkhla immigration officers infected with Covid-19, 70 at risk

    2 immigration officials from the southern province of Songkhla are reported to be infected with Covid-19, putting about 70 others at risk after close contact with the officials. The provincial communicable disease committee made the announcement today. The new cases, both officers working at the Sadao border checkpoint, brings the tally in the province to 39 after 2 weeks with…

  • Thailand’s marine life is rebounding during Covid-19 crisis

    Thailand’s marine life is rebounding during Covid-19 crisis

    The Marine National Park in the southern province of Trang spotted 4 dugongs, 4 dolphins and 8 sea turtles offshore near Hat Chao Mai National Park. The MNP and Hat Chao Mai National Park conducted the observation by sea and air covering the areas abundant with seagrass around Yong Lam Beach, Yong Ling Beach, and Ko Muk. The dugong pod…

  • Woman cooks and eats Leopard, posts her kitchen skills on Facebook attracting widespread outrage

    Woman cooks and eats Leopard, posts her kitchen skills on Facebook attracting widespread outrage

    A disturbing Facebook post went viral this week depicting a woman grilling and eating a young leopard with a caption that read “Tonight’s dinner, fried spicy leopard. Did I get it by accident?”After the post saw wide-scale outrage, it was picked up by local NGO, Watchdog Thailand, who brought it to the attention of wildlife authorities. Leopards are a protected…

  • Medical team from Songkhla come to Phuket to help during Covid-19 outbreak

    Medical team from Songkhla come to Phuket to help during Covid-19 outbreak

    Phuket health workers have welcomed a special team of much-needed medics from southern Thailand’s Songkhla Nararin Hospital. The 50 medics arrived in Phuket yesterday to assist with Covid 19 cases and testing on the island. The team, led by the Nararin Hospital director, set up a field hospital to assist patients suffering from Covid 19. Phuket currently has the second…

  • Man drowns in waste treatment pond after fleeing police checkpoint

    Man drowns in waste treatment pond after fleeing police checkpoint

    This morning at 4am a man on a motorbike, trying to evade a police checkpoint in Songkhla province (southern Thailand), drowned in a sludge treatment pool. At 4am on Phonpichai Road, when police officers were packing up the checkpoint and were about to head home, a man riding a motorcycle had turned around just before reaching the checkpoint, and continued…

  • Soldiers injured in Narathiwat bomb attack

    Soldiers injured in Narathiwat bomb attack

    A bomb attack in the southern province of Narathiwat has injured two army rangers. Narathiwat along with neighbouring provinces Pattani and Yala, and also known as the three Southern Border Provinces, are home to Thailand’s Southern Insurgency. The attack occured on Friday night. Eight rangers were returning to their base when the roadside bomb went off. They had been helping…