Recent news items reveal:

One Brit beaten to death on Ko Chang (must be the first time a bloke from Sunderland has been beaten to death for is money!)

One Dane (yikes!) beaten to death in Cha'am

One Welsh family killed in head on crash in Chiang Mai

Another, 62 year old, Brit given a good kicking in Pattaya

Several 'jumpers' - current scoreboard standing at:

Australia - 3
Germany - 2
Thailand - 1
Sweden - 1

As the old desk sarge used to say on 'Hill Street Blues' - "Be careful out there".

Not good at all...

Cant get my head around these jumpers though...it seems to be every few months...what makes someone want to do this?
Never really heard of it happening so regualar in other countries?

All very worrying but when you consider the amount of people travelling to Thailand at time of year who dont have a problem i suppose the statistics are very good....

Still, not nice to hear about

quote:

They DONT want to do it , to be jumping to their deaths.

No of course no wants to be leaping from a balcony unless they can help it...but the sad facts are that it happens and it happens quite frequently!!

Yes 2 and 2 dont add up for everyone but at some stage they must have made a positive decision to jump...rational or not

I could understand if woman or money problems were too much for a person who has been in Thailand for some time but when it is a short stay tourist you have got to question it all!!

Ive spent a fair amount of time upcountry and never heard of it happining there, why is it all in the same areas?

I must admit i have spent little time in Pattaya but when ever we have been there you can be sure when the local expat news is on tv there will be images of westerners being dragged out of apartments dead under strange circumstances!!

You have got to question it!

I suspect alcohol plays a significant part in people's decision to jump. However, I read somewhere that there is a suspicion that some of these people did not actually jump willingly.

It seems an almost daily occurrence that we read of some farang expat meeting a sticky end.

I think "jumped" means pushed in some of these cases. How thoughtful of the Thai partners of these unfortunate leapers to realise that they are a lost cause and need help to end it all. Otherwise those in despair would need to adopt a more do-it-yourself approach. The favourite exit strategy seems to be to ride a motorbike into the path of a oncoming truck. Fortunately most truck drivers can be relied upon to be drunk, especially at this time of year. For those who favour a water-based method, jet skis available at many beach resorts.

The old marry a farrang in Thailand, wait for a year or two, bring the Thai husband boyfriend back into the picture to do the pushing of the balcony. Does seem very common over there especially Pattaya.

Life is cheap in a lot of places. It brings things home that Thailand is still really a 3rd world country.

Anymore details available on the 3 Aussie jumpers??

Skippy

hi everyone
jumpers yes it's the time of the year i has two this xmas, one off my dear wife and a hand knitted from my old mum and as the weather is pretty dam cold outside at this time i can asure you that they were both welcome

I think Thailand is called a "developing country"...

That is... they've developed new ways of conning/killing you!



Nick

A guy I worked with a few years ago was reported as "Committing Suicide". This happened last year. He had been in LOS for a few years teaching (last I heard) and met his Thai G/F in England. I never knew him that well but well enough to never have him down for someone who would kill himself. Maybe there was more to it but then again you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Article about musician James Hall who was killed in Ko Chang on Christmas Eve by three men who were trying to steal £102 from him here

I suspect that the majority of 'jumpers' are due to a mixture of cheap alcohol and cheap drugs.

If the number of this type of death is somehow proof that

quote:

Life is cheap in a lot of places. It brings things home that Thailand is still really a 3rd world country.

and

quote:

they've developed new ways of conning/killing you!

then I wonder what people make of the places that hold the top three spots in the world for committing suicide.

quote:

A four-mile stretch of cliff face known as Beachy Head, England has the unusual distinction of being the world’s third most popular suicide location behind Aokigahara Woods in Japan and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

(source.)

And, of course, someone being killed by a thief never happens in the west!

Sad to see the story of the death is next to a story about --A 73-YEAR-OLD pensioner was savagely beaten after he refused to hand over cash and cigarettes
while walking home in Sunderland.

This time it appears to a ramdon attack.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter:
Article about musician James Hall who was killed in Ko Chang on Christmas Eve by three men who were trying to steal £102 from him

A friend who is also a musician and lives/lived in the same town found it difficult to find anything nice to say about this bloke, despite being shocked by his death.

For those with lengthy memories, Hall was part of Frankie Miller's band 'Full House' and played on what was probably Frankie's biggest hit (?) 'Be Good To Yourself'.

The shocking thing about these tragedies is that they appear to be far more common in Thailand than in the UK.

The number of UK nationals resident in Thailand is "of the order of" about 10,000 (5,400 in official stats in 1999). The number of murders in the UK is roughly one per 70,000 people per year. So if Thailand was equally as dangerous as the UK, we would only expect to hear about a murder of a UK expat in Thailand roughly once every seven years.

The fact that expats seem to be being bumped off on a far more frequent basis means that, perhaps Thailand is an order of magnitute more dangerous a place to live than the UK for us farangs.

As for suicides, you should expect to hear about no more one UK resident every 2 years in Thailand to on a par with the UK average.

Peter,

I do not think your stats are valid? The UK population includes loads of kids and elderly people, groups who are very rarely murdered.

In contrast, expats in Thailand are in higher risk groups. Moreover, while many of those killed in Thailand may be just unlucky, many others were engaged in palpably dangerous activites such as running businesses in Pattaya, or arguing with corrupt police officers in obscure villages! This means they are exposed to more risk.

It would be interesting to see what the stats are like if Pattaya was excluded?

Ian

I am not sure it is useful to attempt to correlate the murder or suicide rate for the whole of the UK - which would include the murder/suicide of foreign nationals - against the murder/suicide rate of just British Nationals in Thailand. Hardly a like-for-like comparison!

Peter, what is the murder rate in the UK for Thai nationals? or the rate for Non-British murders? Might that not be a more comparative correlation?

Tobias - There are about 18,000 Thais settled officially in the UK (16,256 as of the 2002 census), and a few more living here on visa overstays, dodgy passports etc.

A Thai boy Nuttawut Nadauld was killed in Wokingham in 2005 and masseur Niphan Trikhana was killed in his Chelsea flat in 2004. Due to the very low numbers and random nature of deaths it would be difficult to put a figure on the murder rate for Thais in the UK. Looking over a long timespan it would appear to be not significantly higher than the UK average.

btw, when I arrived in BKK in 1988 the British embassy told me that 40,000 brits lived in Thailand. It seemed a lot, so I would be interested to know if anyone hasd a better estimate?

Ian

For the numbers of Thais in the UK see How many Thai people live in the UK? Since about 1400 people get ILR every year and a fair number of these later return to Thailand I would assume that the Thai UK population is growing about a net rate of about 1,000 people per year.

quote:

while many of those killed in Thailand may be just unlucky, many others were engaged in palpably dangerous activites such as running businesses in Pattaya,

I think you got it spot on their ianb...
I guess if you mix with the wrong people and step on the wrong toes you could easily wind up in trouble...

quote:

It would be interesting to see what the stats are like if Pattaya was excluded?

I have never ever heard or read of a expat suicide outside of these areas...has anyone else??

quote:

However, I read somewhere that there is a suspicion that some of these people did not actually jump willingly.

it dont even ber thinking about does it....this may explain a few....tumbled

I've never had any problems anywhere in Thailand. Maybe its because I know I am in someone elses home and have shown utmost respect to the locals. That includes understanding the way things are done over there.
Theres a big change in perception happening regarding the ' farang '. If a group of foreigners came over here splashing their cash about and ****ging our wives,sisters,daughters, I'm sure the resentment would eventually boil over.
I arent condoning whats happened over there but theres a big BUT.....