Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia has continued for three days, with authorities saying more than 500,000 civilians have been forced to flee their homes due to cross-border shelling and air attacks.
Officials from the two Southeast Asian neighbors also accused each other on Wednesday of restarting a conflict that has left at least 13 soldiers and civilians dead so far this week and more than half a million people from both sides of the border have fled for safety.
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“More than 400,000 people have been moved to safe evacuation centers” in seven provinces, Thai Defense Ministry spokesman Surasant Khongsiri told a news conference.
“Civilians had to be evacuated in large numbers due to what we determined was an immediate threat to their security,” he said.
The Thai military also reported that rockets fired from Cambodia landed near Surin’s Phanom Donrak Hospital on Wednesday morning, causing patients and hospital staff to take shelter in underground bunkers.
In neighboring Cambodia, “101,229 people have been evacuated to safe havens or the homes of relatives in five provinces,” said Cambodian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Marie Socheata.
Cambodianness, a website run by the Cambodian Media and Broadcasting Corporation, reported that Thai F-16 jets attacked two areas of the country, while Thai artillery continued in three other areas.
Thai news portal Matition Online also reported on Wednesday morning that the country’s military had deployed F-16s to attack “one Cambodian military target” along the border.
Cambodian military rockets and artillery fire also targeted 12 frontline areas in four Thai provinces in the early morning hours, Thailand’s The Nation newspaper reported, citing military sources. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Fighting continues on the border
Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Thailand’s Surin province, said the Thai military reported early Wednesday that fighting had broken out in almost every province that borders Cambodia.
Mr McBride added there were reports of gunfire in five locations in Surin province alone, and thousands of people had been evacuated.
“Most of the people have left here,” he said.
“Hundreds of thousands of people are now seeking refuge on both sides of the border, and fighting continues,” he added.
“The Thai people have said that they do want peace, but they have said that peace has to come with what they call the safety of the Thai people. They haven’t achieved that yet because the attacks continue,” McBride said.
Reporting from Odar Meanchey in northwestern Cambodia, Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo said fighting had spread to five provinces on the border with Thailand, with local residents moving to evacuation centers.
At one camp, which houses about 10,000 displaced people, many people are sheltering under makeshift blue tarp tents, and some camps don’t even have the materials to build shelters to protect them from the heat and rain. The situation is “far from ideal,” Lo said.
“People here say there’s not enough help out there,” Lo said.
“But the bigger fear here, the bigger concern is fear. Fear that there could be more violence, and now people are packing up because they heard loud explosions, even though they are several kilometers from where the fighting is going on. So people are packing up and preparing to move to another evacuation camp,” he said.
“But the problem is, it seems like wherever they go, there is danger.”
Low added that former Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Cambodian Senate president and military commander, has hinted at retaliatory attacks on Thailand, making the conflict unlikely to end soon.
“Who else can say I’m going to call and stop the war?”
This week’s clashes were the deadliest since five days of fighting in July that left dozens dead and some 300,000 displaced on both sides of the Thai-Cambodian border before a fragile ceasefire was agreed following intervention from US President Donald Trump.
President Trump said late Tuesday that he would make the call to stop new fighting.
“I have to make a call. Who else is going to say I’m going to make a call and stop a war between two very powerful countries, Thailand and Cambodia?” President Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania.
However, Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phunketkeo told Al Jazeera there was no possibility of negotiations, adding that Bangkok did not initiate the conflict.
Cambodia’s Defense Ministry also accused Thailand on Tuesday of “indiscriminately and brutally targeting civilian residential areas” with artillery shells, saying the country’s military had no choice but to take action, a claim Bangkok rejected.
Human Rights Watch’s Sunai Fask said fighting between the two countries was “rapidly escalating,” with Cambodia in particular using long-range weapons indiscriminately.
Cambodia’s use of such weapons posed a serious risk to civilians, who had fled their homes in large numbers in search of shelter, but “there was no guarantee of safety” because long-range rocket fire was not accurate, Sunai said.
Sunai added that Thai officials were “in no mood to negotiate” due to a common feeling among politicians and the military that Cambodia has repeatedly violated previous cease-fire agreements to plant landmines on Thai territory “without facing any consequences.”
“We are aware that President Trump’s intervention is imminent… However, Thailand may seek to push as far into Cambodian territory and claim strategic points as possible before President Trump forces a cease-fire,” Sunai said.
He said Cambodia likely did not anticipate this week’s Thai military operations, particularly the scale of “claiming territory from Cambodia and bombing locations inside Cambodia on a daily basis.”
“Cambodian leader Prime Minister Hun Manet’s government is counting on imminent intervention by the United States to force Thailand to halt a military response,” he added.
In a further sign of deteriorating relations, Cambodia announced on Wednesday that it would withdraw from the Southeast Asian Games, currently being held in Thailand, citing “serious concerns”.
Tensions between Bangkok and Phnom Penh have been rising since Thailand last month suspended de-escalation measures agreed at an October summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in the presence of President Donald Trump, after a Thai soldier was injured in the explosion of a land mine newly laid by Cambodia. Cambodian authorities deny the claims.
The dispute between the two neighbors has its roots in an 800-kilometre (500-mile) colonial demarcation line and regularly spills over into armed conflict, with disputes over historic temples along parts of the undemarcated area.
