Border clashes displace over half a million in Cambodia
At least 22 people in Thailand and 19 in Cambodia were killed this month.

(FILE) A WOUNDED Thai soldier is evacuated following clashes along the Thai-Cambodia border in Thailand’s Sisaket province.
HANDOUT/ROYAL THAI ARMY/Agence France-Presse
PHNOM PENH (AFP) — More than half a million people in Cambodia have been displaced from their homes by two weeks of deadly border clashes with neighboring Thailand, Phnom Penh’s interior ministry said Sunday.
Cambodia, which is outgunned and outspent by Bangkok’s military, said Sunday that Thai forces had continued to attack since dawn, with fighting occurring on the border near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple.
The renewed fighting between the Southeast Asian neighbors this month, including with tanks, drones and artillery, has killed at least 22 people in Thailand and 19 in Cambodia, according to officials.
The conflict stems from a territorial dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800-kilometer border and a smattering of ancient temple ruins situated on the frontier.
“At present, more than half a million Cambodian people, including women and children, are suffering severe hardship due to forced displacement from their homes and schools to escape artillery shells, rockets, and aerial bombardments carried out by Thailand’s F-16 aircraft,” Cambodia’s interior ministry said in a statement, giving the total number of people evacuated as 518,611.
Around 400,000 people have been displaced in Thailand due to the reignited border conflict, Bangkok has said.
Each side has blamed the other for instigating the fresh fighting and traded accusations of attacks on civilians, after five days of clashes in July killed dozens.
The United States, China and Malaysia brokered a truce to end that round of fighting, but the ceasefire was short-lived.
A patch of contested land next to the UNESCO-listed heritage site was the site of military clashes in 2008, and sporadic violence for several years after led to the deaths of two dozen people.
A United Nations court ruling in Phnom Penh’s favor in 2013 settled the matter for more than a decade, but this year’s crisis erupted in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a new clash.
