NARATHIWAT, Thailand, (AFP) – The portly assistant school principal pushes aside his paperwork and from his old leather satchel draws a Chinese pistol ; his protection here in the violent Thai south.

''The children don't know I carry a gun,'' says Prachin Ruengchim, as the laughter of young students carries down from the upstairs classroom. ''Almost nobody knows, only close friends. Some other teachers don't know.''

The 59-year-old reveals that he always carries the firearm around the state school, hidden in his bag, and on his motorcycle journeys here in the Mueang district of Narathiwat province, because ''it makes me feel safe.''

''If I have a gun, if someone came to attack me at least I could fight back, or I could give a sign with a gunshot so authorities can rush to the scene,'' he says.

Prachin says it is now normal for civilians to arm themselves in the mainly Muslim region bordering Malaysia, where around 60,000 troops are stationed after five years of brutal insurgent violence.

Almost 3,900 people; both Buddhists and Muslims, have been killed since the unrest began in January 2004, led by shadowy Islamic insurgents who never claim responsibility for the attacks, often shootings.

On one particularly bloody day in early September, eleven people were shot dead in a spate of killings across the region, a former Malay sultanate that was annexed by Thailand in 1902, a source of the current tensions.

The ''climate of insecurity and violence'' that now exists, heightened by the state's failure to ensure law and order, is driving civilians' demands to carry guns, according to activist group Nonviolence International.

A report by the organization in May said around 100 applications for firearms licenses were submitted each day in Narathiwat province alone -- serving as justification for authorities to ease gun regulations.

It said the state also contributed to the south's ''growing gun economy'' by distributing weapons to civilian forces and subsidizing gun purchases -- one government project offered firearms to officials at half the normal price.

Prachin, a Muslim convert since he married seven years ago, said it was ''not difficult'' for teachers or other state employees of either religion to get a gun license, as they are often specific targets of the militants' violence.