Exclusive with Blenkinsop

Award-winning Australian photographer Philip Blenkinsop was among 12 people wounded yesterday when a bomb exploded at a crime scene where police were examining a burnt corpse.

"I consider myself to be lucky. We were all lucky," said Blenkinsop, who was on assignment for Time magazine covering the ongoing insurgency in the Malay-speaking far South with British writer Andrew Marshall.

The bomb was buried on the roadside next to the corpse of Prathep Srimai, 44, a staff officer at Yala municipality's health clinic, who was shot yesterday morning by suspected insurgents.

Police said Prathep's body was placed on a trolley and taken to where the bomb was hidden.

Authorities said the use of a second bomb as a booby-trap at the crime scene was a growing tactic directed at reinforcements or investigating officials.

Blenkinsop, who was only two to four metres away from the blast, was rushed to Yala hospital, where he was treated for shrapnel wounds.

"I want to thank the hospital staff, the governor and his deputy. They were wonderful and very professional," he said.

"My thoughts are with the family of the victim. They suffered much more than I did."

Blenkinsop has been based in Bangkok since the late 1980s and has covered a number of conflicts, including the guerrilla war in Indonesia's Aceh province, the communist insurgency in Nepal and the plight of the ethnic Hmong in communist Laos. He began his career with The Sunday Times newspaper in Perth and then The Australian in Sydney, before leaving to work in Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, in Bangkok, junta chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin asked the foreign ministry yesterday to solicit information about Thai nationals who have resettled in Sweden and other countries in Europe, following reports linking them to violence in the South.

Sources said Sonthi had been informed that insurgents in the three southernmost provinces have links with exiled Malays who have resettled in Europe, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Members of long standing separatist groups such as Patani United Liberation Organisation (Pulo), Bersatu and Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) have opted for Europe and other neighbouring countries after their military wings surrendered about a decade ago.

Sources said informal channels of communication had been established with these groups to determine the extent of their involvement with the ongoing violence in the restive region, where more than 2,100 people have died since January 2004.

The Nation

Yala