For the second day in a row, Thailand and Cambodia have been locked in a fierce gun battle along a disputed border.
The death toll from two days of fighting has risen to 16, including 15 Thais and one Cambodian. The UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the scale and scope of the conflict.
All of the dead are Thais, including 14 civilians. Another 46 people have been injured in the two-day clash, most of them civilians, the Thai military said. About 150,000 residents of the border area have been evacuated to safer areas to reduce the number of casualties. They are currently staying in 300 nearby shelters.
Meanwhile, there is no confirmed information on the number of casualties in Cambodia in the ongoing conflict. As of Thursday, one person was killed and five were injured. The local government of the border province of Oder Minchi said that about 1,500 families in the area had been evacuated.
The conflict is being called the biggest conflict between the two countries in the past decade.
On Thursday, the two sides clashed around the disputed Ta Mon Thom temple in the morning local time. Two Thai civilians were killed in the clash that morning. As a result, Thailand withdrew its ambassador from Cambodia. It was also decided to expel the Cambodian ambassador. Immediately after the attack, the Thai authorities said that they were reducing diplomatic relations with Cambodia to the “lowest level”. In retaliation, Cambodia also withdrew all its diplomats from Thailand and ordered Thai diplomats to leave the country.
The Thai authorities then deployed an F-16 fighter jet to the border. Shortly after, the Cambodian Defense Ministry claimed that the warplane had bombed Cambodian territory. The situation then became more tense. Phnom Penh warned of a strong response.
Thailand later said that it had prepared six F-16 fighter jets for the attack on Cambodia. Later, it also demanded the “destruction” of two regional military headquarters in Cambodia. Reacting strongly to the incident, Cambodia called Thailand’s actions a “brutal, barbaric and violent military aggression.”
Last May, a Cambodian soldier was killed in a shootout on the border between the two countries.
The international community has expressed concern about the ongoing conflict between the two neighbors. China wants to play a necessary role in ending the war. The European Union has also expressed concern. The European Union has called on both sides to show restraint and resolve the crisis through dialogue. In addition, the United States and France have called for an immediate end to the war.
Thailand and Cambodia are locked in a dispute over an area called the Emerald Triangle. The border between Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos is in this area. The ancient temple of Preah Vihear is also located here. Thailand and Cambodia share a border of about 800 kilometers. However, for many years, they have not been able to agree on where this border line should be. There are still disputes over several kilometers of border areas in several areas.
In 1962, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled to settle the dispute that, based on historical evidence and maps, the Preah Vihear temple is located in Cambodian territory. Although Cambodia welcomed this ruling, it sparked widespread dissatisfaction and political debate in Thailand. Between 2008 and 2011, there were several clashes between the two sides over this issue, resulting in casualties. Later, in 2013, the International Court of Justice again clarified that not only the temple itself, but also the disputed territory around it belongs to Cambodia. However, the ongoing conflict has once again made it clear that even that ruling could not resolve the
