BANGKOK: A teacher has been shot and killed as she arrived at school in Thailand's deep south, the latest of thousands of people who have died in the region during an insurgency that began over a decade ago.

Sunisa Boonyen parked her car Friday morning in front of the school where she teaches in Pattani province when two people on a motorbike drove up.

One of them fired into the driver's seat. Nopsit Temonghla, a police official in Pattani's Mayo district, says the 49-year-old died immediately and a wounded passenger was hospitalised.

The assailants fled. Police were investigating whether the killing was related to political unrest.

Teachers have frequently been targeted since the Muslim insurgency began in 2004. Of the more than 6,500 people killed, more than 180 were educators.