In Narathiwat's Srisakorn district, Yupha Sengwat, 26, a substitute teachers, and Thipaporn Thansopha, 42, a permanent staff who had submitted a request for a transfer, were shot dead at point blank range while taking their lunch.

Police and witnesses said two gunmen walked calmly the teachers' break room at Ban Sakor Elementary School and unload their handguns, leaving the bodies of two female teachers riddled with bullets.

In another incident in Rangae district of the same province, Somai Laocharoensuk, 50, was gunned down by a gunman using AK47 assault rifle at midday during his lunch break.

Somai was just a kilometre away form the school in Tambon Bango Stoe when he was ambushed while driving his pickup truck. He died at the scene of the attack, police said.

All three victims were Buddhists teachers teaching in government schools that are situated in violenceprone communities where violence has become a daily occurrence.

Police blamed Muslim insurgents looking to carve out a separate homeland for the Malayspeaking community in the deep south.

Teachers and schools are often targeted because insurgents see them as the symbols of state's effort to impose Thai Buddhist culture on this predominantly ethnic Malay region. More than 2,200 have died in the region since January 2004.