Security?

Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra defends Thai security force "gentle measures".

They stacked them like logs, 1311 men and boys in six army trucks. Face down, hands tied behind their backs, one on top of another for the drive to the Thai army base in Pattani.

When the trucks arrived more than six hours later, 78 of the protesters were dead of suffocation or convulsions. At least two had broken necks.

Forensic pathologists say many of the men suffocated in their own village of Tak Bai, Narathiwat province, on Monday, stacked in the trucks for six stifling hours before they were driven to Pattani, 100 kilometres north.

Villagers bury 78, digging mass grave for 28 "unclaimed" bodies.