THAILAND: Almost 1,400 people have been killed since January 2004 in unrest blamed on Islamic separatists, writes Rory Byrne in southern Thailand
The teachers all arrive in a group. Wasting no time, they file in through the gap in the razor-wire and on past the sand-bagged bunkers and the heavily armed soldiers.
Soon after, the children begin to arrive dressed in their bright pink uniforms and are hurriedly led to their classrooms.
So begins another day at Islamiyah junior school, one of hundreds of schools where teachers are under threat of attack in Thailand's restive deep south. To defend themselves, many schools here have come to resemble fortified military camps.
Almost 1,400 people have been killed in the predominantly Muslim region since January 2004 in unrest that government officials blame on Islamic separatists, though criminal motives may also be at work.
Forty-four of the dead have been teachers - apparently singled out because they are symbols of government control and the Buddhist majority. In addition, almost 60 schools have been destroyed in arson attacks.
The latest victim, killed in late July, sparked national outrage.
Prasarn Makchoo (46), a Thai language teacher, was gunned down in front of his class of 10-year-olds in an audacious attack that heralded a new tactic in the increasingly vicious conflict.
A lone gunman dressed in a school uniform walked calmly past the security guards at the front gate and into Mr Makchoo's classroom. Without saying a word, he pulled a .38 pistol from his school bag and shot the veteran teacher twice in the back as he wrote on the blackboard. He then shot him in the head as he lay on the floor.
Mr Makchoo died almost instantly, his hand still gripping a piece of chalk. The gunman then walked out of the school and escaped on the back of a waiting motorbike.
Little information about the assailants has emerged - local people will tell you that giving information to the police can mean a death sentence.
Many of the children who witnessed the killing are still too traumatised to return to school.
Days after the attack, a bomb exploded in the playground of a nearby school, injuring a security guard and narrowly missing a group of children playing in the area.
"Our schools are on the front line in this conflict," said an official from the Narathawat Teachers Association, who preferred to remain anonymous.
"Teachers throughout the three southern provinces are living in constant fear." He says that teachers are being targeted because of their status and vulnerability.
"Teachers work for the government, teaching the national curriculum. And they are easy targets because they stay in local communities close to the villages."
Most blame the attacks on a variety of shadowy separatist groups, including the Pattani United Liberation Organisation and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional.
These groups and others have been fighting off and on for decades to create an independent state for the two million ethnic Malay Muslims who live in Thailand's deep south.
Yet many of those being killed or injured are themselves Muslims - many working in private Muslim schools - leading some to speculate that criminal gangs or rogue elements of the police or army are involved in some of the killings. Ban Kuwa High School is a typical all-Muslim rural school in Narathiwat's Sungapadi district - an area so dangerous it's largely off limits to the army at night.
In June 2005, Hamdan Yusof (35), the school's sports teacher and a devout Muslim, was shot three times and seriously injured as he walked home after school. Nobody knows why.
Later that year, the president of the school, Droning Meli, also a Muslim, was wounded by a gunman as he relaxed in his front garden. "I cannot think why I was attacked - maybe it was a mistake," said Mr Meli with a shrug.
"We don't know who the enemy is. We feel caught in between [ the army and the insurgents]. We don't know which way to turn," said one teacher at the school who asked to remain anonymous.
Hasim Srirakor, the headmaster of Ban Kuwa, told The Irish Times that the violence is greatly affecting his teachers' ability to do their jobs. "Our teachers are really frightened . . . They do their best but it is a very difficult situation." Five of the school's 29 teachers have transferred to other regions. All who remain are from the local area.
"We're frightened, but we don't have anywhere else to go. Our families, our friends, our whole lives are here in Narathiwat," said English teacher Sharipah Loh.
Yet thousands of other teachers from around the region have applied for transfers and education authorities are struggling to fill vacancies.
The teachers at Ban Kuwa travel to and from the school in a convoy escorted by armed civil defence volunteers.
In addition, the school has introduced more Islamic content into the curriculum in the hope of placating the militants.
Despite the threat, Ban Kuwa school has refused offers of full-time protection from the army, which can lead to reprisals. "We do not want armed soldiers patrolling the school grounds although they do drop by twice a day," said Mr Srirakor.