Chinese shot dead in their homes: is this Thai rebels' ethnic cleansing?

Siriporn Sae-aui has never heard of the term 'ethnic cleansing'. But what she does know is that she is the last ethnic Chinese left in her village in southern Thailand.

Ms Siriporn says she too may flee after Muslim insurgents shot dead her grandmother, Sek, as she cleaned her teeth on the first day of the Lunar New Year.

Over the past two years, Ms Siriporn, 24, has watched five other Chinese families driven from the coastal hamlet in Panare district, east of Pattani in Thailand's Muslim deep south.

All fish traders, they served the Muslim fishermen who ply local waters in small, multicoloured boats - a close-knit community relationship that stretches back centuries. The Chinese families' houses sit shuttered and abandoned.

'I just cannot explain how something like this could happen,' she said in her small shophouse that backs on to an estuary canal. 'They crept alongside the house and stuck their guns through the ventilation holes and shot my grandmother. She was standing up cleaning her teeth. She didn't even have a chance to run.'

Siriporn's grandfather escaped and is living in hiding with other relatives. Ms Siriporn leaves the village before dark and sleeps at the house of a friend outside. She returns to work each day. 'It is my duty for my relatives and for my ancestors. We have always been here. I don't want to leave.'