Thailand security under fire after tourist rape attack

Thailand security under fire after tourist rape attack

Thai Police are expected to increase security in parts of the country following a brutal assault on French tourists over the weekend.

The new attacks have raised fresh concern about traveller safety in Thailand, which had a record 29 million visitors travel to the country in 2015, according to a news report on breakingnews.ie.

The attacks on Koh Kut Island in eastern Thailand allegedly involved four French tourists being brutally assaulted, including two women who were raped at knifepoint. Police said they have held five Cambodian suspects and have pressed charges of rape and conspiracy to assault after receiving a confession to the attacks, the paper reports.

Thai police said four French tourists were attacked late on Saturday on Koh Kood, a remote island near Thailand’s maritime border with Cambodia known for its untamed jungle and pristine beaches.

“We don’t have a lot of criminal cases in Koh Kut, not even robbery,” Koh Kut deputy police chief Lt. Col Suraporn Thepsen said, the paper reports.

“We will have to tighten security in Koh Kut.”

According to hospital officials, the victims’ condition has improved.

It is the latest high-profile case to hit the popular holiday destination, raising serious questions about tourist safety in the Southeast Asian country.

In December, two migrant workers from Myanmar were found guilty by a Thai court of killing two British tourists on a beach on the southern Thai holiday island of Koh Tao in 2014.

Thailand remains a popular tourist destination including among Australians, despite a slew of high-profile crimes against tourists last year and an August bomb attack at a popular Bangkok shrine that left 20 people dead, most of them foreigners.

The government expects a record 32 million people to visit Thailand this year. Tourism remains one of the few bright spots in the Thai economy which has struggled since a 2014 coup by the military.

Image: istock

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