BANGKOK, May 3, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A gunman has shot dead three people including a child in Thailand's insurgency-hit south, police said Saturday, as authorities pursued the suspect.

The attacker opened fire late Friday in a residential area of Tak Bai district in Narathiwat province, one of three Muslim-majority provinces in Thailand's far south gripped by a decades-long separatist insurgency.

Three people were killed, including a nine-year-old girl and a 75-year-old man, police said.

"One victim died at the scene, and two others succumbed to their injuries at the hospital," local police officer Watthana Thurarat told AFP, adding that two more people were wounded.

Police believe the suspect, who remains at large, is linked to a rebel group, Watthana said.

Violence frequently rocks the kingdom's southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, where separatists seeking greater autonomy for the religiously distinct region have killed more than 7,000 people since 2004.

However, attacks on unarmed civilians in residential areas remain relatively rare, with most targeting security personnel.

In 2004, Thai security forces shot into a crowd of protesters outside a police station in Tak Bai, killing seven.

Subsequently, 78 others suffocated in the back of military trucks after they were arrested -- a deadly crackdown widely seen as a trigger for the southern unrest in the Buddhist-majority country.

Last year, a Thai court dismissed the long-delayed Tak Bai case, brought by victims' families against seven officials, when the statute of limitations expired.

Analysts have warned the decision could further inflame tensions in the region.