A Malaysian truck driver has been shot dead in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, where separatist militants are fighting for their own state.

The 40-year-old man was shot several times and died late yesterday at a wood processing plant in Narathiwat province, along Thailand's southern border with Malaysia, police said.

He lived in Kelantan, but frequently crossed into Thailand to work.

Another man, a 41-year-old Muslim, was also shot dead while eating dinner at a friend's home late Thursday in Narathiwat, police added.

More than 3,300 people have been killed since separatist unrest broke out in January 2004 in the south, which was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed it in 1902, provoking decades of tension.