The Crown Prince of Johor, Malaysia, was near the scene of Tuesday’s shooting at the Siam Paragon shopping mall in central Bangkok and has recounted, what he described as, his “worst experience”.
Writing on his Facebook and X pages late on Tuesday night, Crown Prince Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim said he and his family were sitting in a hotel lobby near the shopping mall when, as the shooting began, people started shouting and running into the building, according to Malaysian and Singaporean media.
He said their group, together with their security team, immediately ran to the hotel’s basement.
“We had to be on alert and prepared for any circumstance, because all we knew at that point was that we had heard gunshots. We didn’t have any other information and had to be ready for anything,” Tunku Ismail said.
“I still have images of me telling my kids, ‘Everything is going to be okay. Babah and mama are here,” he added. He also told his four children, aged between two and seven, to stay down while they waited for their car to arrive.
Tunku Ismail said he and his security team stood in front of the family as a human shield until they could escape from the area.
“The idea was to get the family and my team out of there. My wife hugged all our kids, staying low and trying to calm them, because they were terrified and were crying.
“I was shouting at the top of my voice to our security to get the car to the basement and get us to a secure location away from the place,” he said.
Tunku Ismail said he told his team to go to the Malaysian embassy in Thailand, but his driver informed him that the Singaporean embassy was closer, so he contacted the Singapore consul-general in Johor for assistance and was then taken to the Singapore embassy.
He said he also called Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Defence Minister Mohamad Hasan to inform them of the situation. The Malaysian Ambassador to Thailand, H.E. Jojie Samuel, joined him later.
He wrote a follow-up post three hours later, saying that he had landed in Johor.
“This is the worst experience I’ve ever gone through, protecting the lives of my children from a killer. Two people died. May God bless their innocent souls,” he said.
