Thai town struggles with sudden loss of so many of its young

UTHAI SAWAN, Thailand (AP) — Paweenuch Supholwong sits on her mother’s lap and fidgets with her pigtails as her mother tells the remarkable story of how the 3-year-old wisp of a girl survived Thailand’s worst mass killing — the only child to emerge unscathed from a day care after a former police officer massacred preschoolers while they napped.

Two dozen children were among the 36 people shot and slashed to death in an attack that shattered the serenity of the rural township of Uthai Sawan, robbing the small farming community of much of its youngest generation in the blink of an eye.

Paweenuch was deeply asleep and covered by a blanket on the floor when the attacker burst through the front door and killed 22 of her classmates who lay around her — apparently missing her because he thought she was already dead, her mother Panomplai Srithong said. Another child survived with serious injuries and remains hospitalized.

As the community has come together to share its grief at the scene of the attack and its Buddhist temples, people have also flocked to Paweenuch, tying dozens of white, yellow and red “soul strings” to her wrists in the hope it will help her also spiritually survive the horror, in the belief that when someone suffers such a tragedy, they lose part of their soul.