Violence has claimed 4,846 lives in Thailand's majority-Muslim far south since 2004, with no sign of the violence abating this year, media reports said Friday, according to dpa. There have been 11,704 violent incidents documented in Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces since January 2004, claiming 4,846 dead and 7,995 injured, according to Deep South Watch, a network of academics and civil society groups that monitors the southern unrest. Of the dead, 1,857 were identified as Buddhists and 2,858 as Muslims, with 131 victims' religion unknown, the Nation online news service reported, citing the organization. There has been no let-up in the killings this year, as the separatists have moved to using more bombs, southern security sources said. In the latest incident Thursday, a roadside bomb in Pattani province, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, killed five security officers. Thailand's majority-Muslim southernmost provinces have been a hotbed of violence since January 2004, when a long-simmering separatist movement in the region took a more militant turn. The area, once called the Islamic Sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago but has never fully accepted central government rule. -- SPA
