Pattani, Thailand (CHAKRA) — In the Southern part of Thailand, five Buddhists have been shot and killed because of an ongoing conflict of many years between the government and Malay Muslims. Thailand is a majority Buddhist country in Asia.

In the province of Pattani, police witnessed Muslim militants gunmen open fire on five people who were sitting outside of a local store in the market.

Over 4,300 people have been killed in Pattani, a majority Muslim region in the South of Thailand. 4,300 deaths have been reported since 2004, when the insurgency commenced. In addition to the five shootings, there have been many deadly attacks recently including an assault on the military base.

In 2004, Muslim militants raided a Thailand military weapons depot, killing five soldiers and stole 350 semi-automatic rifles. After the raid, Thailand’s army launched a series of attacks on the separatists. Over 4,000 people have died, mostly Buddhist and more than 7,000 others have been injured in the past 6 years?.

Narathiwat, Thailand (CHAKRA) - In Thailand’s South, six people were shot dead and ten police officers were wounded by a roadside bombs during the latest attack by militants.  Most of the people attacked during this outbreak were in serious condition and taken immediately to the hospital.

A police vehicle was targeted with an explosive device while they were rushing to the Bacho district in the province Narathiwat in response to a report of attacks there.

Six Buddhist villagers who had been out hunting were later found shot dead.  The suspects for these deaths are Islamic militants.

A separatist insurgency which began six years ago in Thailand’s troubled Muslim majority southern provinces bordering Malaysia has left more than 4,000 people dead, mostly buddhists, as well as thousands more wounded.

The militants who never directly state their goals and intentions in public have targeted Buddhists,  police officers and civilians in the southern provinces to maintain a shocking campaign against the control of the central government.

The troubled southern region was an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until it was captures in 1902 by majority Buddhist Thailand and the tensions have never stopped or decreased since then.  These issues only escalated into the insurgency in January, 2004.

Buddhists are constantly attacked in Majority-Muslim Bangladesh

Bangladesh (CHAKRA) – A human rights group in New Delhi has requested UN intervention after attacks on tribal areas in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh.

“The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) has demanded the intervention of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Navi Pillay to ask Bangladesh government to take appropriate action on the burning of tribal buddhist villages and indiscriminate killing of tribals by the Bangladesh Army and illegal settlers Saturday,” said director of ACHR, Suhas Chakma in a statement.

Newspapers and media companies in Bangladesh have reported that the authorities have deployed soldiers after over 100 houses in a village in addition to a Christian church, a Buddhist temple as well as an office of a UN-funded project were set on fire in Bagaichhari sub-district under CHT Saturday.

A sacred statue was damaged and another stolen at the Banani Buddhist Monastery.

Six people, all Buddhists have been killed by a mob of Muslim settlers in the midst of the attacks according to people in the Chakma tribes.

“This attack on the indigenous buddhist  people shows that the government of Bangladesh has failed to change its policy of indiscriminate killings of tribals and minorities win order to occupy their lands and implant more illegal plains settlers instead of implementing the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord of 1997,” stated a Chakma tribal representative.

There has been many reported attacks on Buddhist and Hindu tribal villages since 1997 in Bangladesh which have now become occupied by Muslim villagers and landowners. Many critics call this a genocide against non-muslim minorities by neighboring muslim villages and the Islamic Bangladeshi government.