Thailand Strikes Cambodia as Border Conflict Escalates

Strikes across the Thailand-Cambodia border continued to be traded Friday, leaving at least 17 dead and over 135,000 displaced, while Thailand’s acting prime minister said the situation could deteriorate into full-scale conflict, the Guardian reported.  

Cited by Agence France-Press, acting PM Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters, “If the situation escalates it could develop into war, though for now, it remains limited to clashes.” 

Thailand launched airstrikes on Cambodia Thursday, a sharp escalation in the border dispute between the two neighbors, which has led to dozens of deaths and injuries over the past decade, the Washington Post reported. 

Cambodia launched rockets and artillery at its neighbor, while Thailand flew an F-16 fighter jet over Cambodia, bombing what it claimed were two military targets, France 24 wrote. 

Thai officials said Friday that the exchange of cross-border fire had killed at least 16 civilians, with more injured, and more than 138,000 civilians evacuated from the three regions, the Guardian reported. Cambodia reported one dead and five civilians wounded.  

Both militaries blamed each other for opening fire first on Thursday. 

The two countries have been clashing intermittently for years over contested territory on their 508-mile shared border, but the conflict started to escalate at the end of May when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a skirmish.  

Thursday’s clashes follow one a day earlier in which a landmine injured a Thai soldier patrolling a disputed part of the border. Three other Thai soldiers had been injured by landmines in the region Sunday, Channel News Asia noted. 

The Thai foreign ministry has filed an official complaint with Cambodia, arguing that the landmines found in the area were recently placed.  

Cambodia’s foreign ministry denied that charge, arguing instead that the Thai soldiers strayed from agreed patrol routes into Cambodian territory and reached areas that had unexploded landmines. 

Thailand announced that all border checkpoints with Cambodia under its control are shut down. Both countries asked citizens to evacuate the border area.