NARATHIWAT, Aug 8 - A female rubber tapper was killed by two gunmen armed with M16 and AK47 assault rifles while she was collecting latex in a plantation in this violence-plagued southern border province.

Rattana Kwanjai, 42, was shot three times while she was working alone in a rubber plantation in Ruso district.

The gunmen were presumed to have returned to the nearby mountain forest. Police initially presumed they were insurgents active in the area.

An autopsy will be conducted before the victim's body will be given to her family for a religious ceremony.

Insurgency flared up in the three southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and four districts in Songkhla in 2004 and has claimed more than 4,200 lives since then. (MCOT online news)