Pattani, Thailand - Suspected Islamic separatists on Tuesday shot dead a couple and burned their bodies on the roadside in the latest atrocity to hit Thailand's troubled, majority-Muslim deep South. 

Thai-Buddhists Chachawan Sonkamnong and his wife Amphai were shot dead in an ambush in Mayo district of Pattani province, about 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, as they drove a motorcycle to work in a rubber plantation, police said. 

Their 14-year-old son, Suphot, who was also on the motorcycle, managed to flee the assailants. 

The perpetrators, believed to be Muslim militants, doused the dead couple with kerosine and burned their bodies on the roadside. 

"We believe the assailants were people from the area bent on scaring the local population," said Major General Thawatchai Samusakorn. 

On Monday in Nong Chik district, also in Pattani, assailants attacked a military truck escorting children to school, killing two soldiers. Three children were injured when their school bus crashed after the attack. 

These were just the latest incidents of violence to occur in the deep South, a region that encompasses the Thai provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala. 

More than 2,700 people have died in clashes and revenge killings in the border area since January, 2004, when Muslim militants raided an army arms depot and stole more than 300 war weapons, prompting a government crackdown on the long-simmering separatist struggle. 

The three provinces bordering Malaysia comprised the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani more than 200 years ago before it fell under Bangkok's rule. More than 80 per cent of the three provinces' 2 million people are Muslims, making the region an anomaly in predominantly Buddhist Thailand. (dpa)