For Terd Disayathanoowat, a 39-year-old researcher from Chiang Mai Province in northern Thailand, Yunnan is the one place in China that makes him feel "at home". It is also the Chinese province bordering three Southeast Asian countries — Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Twenty-one suspected insurgents reported themselves to the authorities in Narathiwat province on Saturday morning to enter a programme that would absolve them of their alleged crimes.