BANGKOK (Reuters) – Fresh violence flared in mainly Muslim southern Thailand on Monday, only hours after the Air Force dropped an estimated 100 million origami “peace birds” to quell unrest which has claimed nearly 500 lives.
Police said a bomb exploded at an intersection near a market in the southern province of Narathiwat on Monday morning, injuring at least one soldier.

Overnight, the home of a teacher in the same province, one of three near the Malaysian border plagued by violence, was burned to the ground. In neighboring Yala, a school building was slightly damaged by fire, although nobody was injured, officials said.

On Sunday, while a fleet of around 50 Thai Air Force planes “bombed” the largely Muslim region with paper birds as a symbol of peace, two gunmen shot dead a former prosecutor at Pattani province, police said.

The bird campaign, launched by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra weeks ahead of a general election, caught the imagination of the predominantly Buddhist country, even in Bangkok where sympathy for the Malay-speaking south is limited.

Everyone from cabinet ministers to cab drivers huddled in groups to fold birds — they were meant to be doves, a symbol of peace, but most turned out to look more like cranes — after Thaksin called on all 63 million Thais to make one.

Probably the biggest origami airdrop in history was meant to sow peace, harmony and goodwill in the region, where an insurgency began in January with a raid on an army camp in which 300 assault rifles were stolen.