BANGKOK – At least four people were killed and 15 students injured during a school shooting just north of Bangkok on Friday, Thailand’s deputy interior minister said.

Two students and two teachers were killed in the assault at the high school in Nonthaburi province, Deputy Interior Minister Polapee Suwunchwee told local broadcaster Thai PBS.

The injured students were not hurt by gunfire but suffered injuries as they were trying to flee, he said.

The shooter was identified as a teenage student of the school, according to local media reports citing authorities. He is also reported to have died.

Some reports said police officers had shot and killed the suspect, while others said he died by suicide.

“It’s such a terrible incident. It should never have happened. How could this happen in our country?” Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters at Bangkok’s Government House.

Polapee said the suspect used a handgun in the attack and the interior ministry is investigating how it was obtained.

Photos published by local media show the suspect wearing a purple school uniform and carrying a black cross-body bag, with several bullet casings visible on the ground.

Traffic near the Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Nonthaburi was nearly at a standstill, with local media reporting parents picking up their children following the incident.

Thailand has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the region, with around 10 million firearms estimated to be in circulation — one for every seven inhabitants.

Past promises of tightening gun laws have not prevented repeated shootings.

Thai police shot and arrested a teenage shooter who opened fire at a school in the south of the country in February, following an attack that left the school principal dead and two students injured.

The teen had used a police officer’s weapon in the shooting.

A local police chief said at the time that the suspect had been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in December and was recently discharged.

The teen stabbed a police officer with a knife and stole his weapon — a 9 mm pistol — just before the incident, and then used it to carry out the attack.

In 2022, an ex-policeman armed with a gun and a knife stormed into a nursery in the country’s north and murdered 24 children and 12 adults, one of Thailand’s deadliest massacres.