Border clashes of rare intensity opposed Thailand and Cambodia on Thursday: Thai combat aircraft struck Cambodian military targets and artillery fire attributed to the opposite camp killed a civilian according to Bangkok.
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Thailand led strikes against Cambodian military targets on Thursday and Phnom Penh launched artillery and rockets against its neighbor, killing at least 12 dead according to Bangkok, in border clashes of rare intensity.
The two kingdoms of Southeast Asia have long been tearing themselves off on the layout of their common border, defined during French Indochina, but clashes at this level of violence had not shaken the region for almost fifteen years.
The Thai Health Ministry reported 12 dead, including 11 civilians, and 35 injured. Eight civilians were killed in the province of Sisaket, where an attack on the arugula hit a mini-market near a service station.
“I heard a big noise three or four times, and when I turned my head, there was a huge cloud of smoke,” said AFP Praphas Intaracheun, a 53-year-old gardener, who was in a service station 300 m from this targeted, at the time of the facts.
An eight-year-old child also lost his life in the province of Surin (northeast), according to the authorities.
Sleeve also affected a hospital of around thirty beds in Phanom Dong Rak, in the province of Surin, near the border, causing the partial collapse of the roof.
The building had been partially evacuated in the night from Wednesday to Thursday as a precaution. “We do not know when patients will be able to return safely,” a soldier at the entrance told AFP, wishing to keep anonymity.
The fighting is concentrated around six places, said the Thai army, which deployed six F-16 planes on Thursday morning to strike “two Cambodian military targets on the ground,” said assistant spokesman for the armed forces, Ritcha Suksuwanon.
Cambodia has not communicated any assessment until then. Ministry spokeswoman Khmer Defense Maly Socheata refused to answer a question about possible victims at a press conference.
“Avide of war”
The European Union and China, a country which traditionally maintains good relations with the two countries, declared themselves “deeply concerned” by clashes and called for dialogue.
France, a former colonial power in Cambodia, also asked for the immediate stop of the fighting and the opening of talks. The French Embassy in Thailand has “strongly advised” the movements in a border area ranging from Phanom Dong Rak to Chong Bok, Thai side.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who occupies the rotating presidency of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), called the two countries to “restraint”.
He indicated on Facebook that he had interimed Thai Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, and Cambodian leader Hun Manet, to inform them of the “deep concern” of his country.
Bangkok and Phnom Penh have been engaged in a barrier since the death of a Khmer soldier at the end of May, during a night exchange of fire in a disputed area nicknamed the “emerald triangle”.
Reprisal measures, decreed by the two camps despite appeals to appeasement, have already affected the economy and the fate of many inhabitants of the regions concerned.
A new exchange of shots near old disputed temples, which occurred Thursday after 8 am (1 hour GMT) at the Thai province of Surin (Northeast) and that Cambodian of Oddar Meanchey (northwest), replaced the powder.
The two armies mutually accused themselves of firing first.
Hun Manet shared on Facebook a letter he sent to the President of the UN Security Council in which he claimed an “emergency” meeting of the Security Council.
Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub condemned Cambodia’s actions “eager for war” by targeting civilians.
The Thai Embassy in Cambodia called on its fellow citizens to leave the country “as soon as possible”.
“Wars of the past”
On Wednesday, Bangkok recalled his ambassador in place in Phnom Penh and expelled from his territory the Cambodian ambassador, after a Thai soldier lost a leg while walking on a mine on the border.
An investigation by the Thai army made it possible to determine that Cambodia had posed new mines on the border, according to Thai authorities.
Cambodia rejected these accusations and indicated that border areas remain infested with active mines dating from “wars of the past”.
The most violent modern episode linked to the border dates back to clashes around the Preah Vihear temple between 2008 and 2011, which had left at least 28 dead and tens of thousands of displaced.