A Thai F-16 fighter jet bombed targets in Cambodia, both sides said, as weeks of tension over a border dispute escalated into clashes on Thursday that have killed at least 12 people, including 11 civilians.
Of the six F-16 fighter jets that Thailand readied to deploy along the disputed border, one of the aircraft fired into Cambodia and destroyed a military target, the Thai army said. Both countries accused each other of starting the clash early on Thursday.
“We have used air power against military targets as planned,” Thai army deputy spokesperson Richa Suksuwanon told reporters. Thailand also closed its border with Cambodia.
Cambodia’s defence ministry said the jets dropped two bombs on a road, and that it “strongly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia.”
The skirmishes came after Thailand recalled its ambassador to Cambodia late on Wednesday and said it would expel Cambodia’s envoy in Bangkok, after a second Thai soldier in the space of a week lost a limb to a landmine that Bangkok alleged had been laid recently in the disputed area.
For more than a century, Thailand and Cambodia have contested sovereignty at various undemarcated points along their 817-kilometre land border, which has led to skirmishes over several years.
Thailand’s health minister said 11 civilians, including a child, and one soldier were killed in artillery shelling by Cambodian forces, while 24 civilians and seven military personnel were wounded. There was no immediate word of casualties in Cambodia.
“The Thai Army condemns Cambodia for using weapons to attack civilians in Thailand. Thailand is ready to protect sovereignty and our people from inhumane action,” the country’s military said in a statement.
Regional powers urge calm
China’s foreign ministry on Thursday said it is deeply concerned about ongoing developments along the Thailand-Cambodia border and hopes that both sides will properly address issues through dialogue and consultations. China will play a constructive role in promoting de-escalation, foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference, adding that China upholds a just and impartial stance.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, the current chair of Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN in which Thailand and Cambodia are also members, urged calm and said he would speak to leaders of both countries to peacefully resolve their dispute.
Thai residents including children and the elderly ran to shelters built of concrete and fortified with sandbags and car tires in the Surin border province.
“How many rounds have been fired? It’s countless,” an unidentified woman told the Thai Public Broadcasting Service while hiding in the shelter as gunfire and explosions were heard intermittently in the background.
Cambodia’s foreign ministry said Thailand’s airstrikes were “unprovoked” and called on its neighbour to withdraw its forces and “refrain from any further provocative actions that could escalate the situation.”
Tensions were reignited in May following the killing of a Cambodian soldier during a brief exchange of gunfire, which escalated into a full-blown diplomatic crisis and now has triggered armed clashes.
The clashes began early on Thursday near the disputed Ta Moan Thom temple along the border between Cambodia and Thailand, around 360 kilometres east of the Thai capital Bangkok.
Thailand’s Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin told reporters Cambodian shelling included a strike on a hospital in Surin province, which he said should be considered a war crime.
“Artillery shell fell on people’s homes,” Sutthirot Charoenthanasak, district chief of Kabcheing in Surin province, told Reuters, adding authorities had evacuated 40,000 civilians from 86 border villages to safer locations. “Two people have died,” he added.
Landmine accusation denied by Cambodia
Video footage showed a plume of thick black smoke rising from a gas station in the neighbouring Thai Sisaket province, as firefighters rushed to extinguish the blaze.
A total of eight people have been killed and 15 wounded in Sisaket, the health minister said, adding another person was killed in the border province of Ubon Ratchathani.
The army said Cambodia deployed a surveillance drone before sending troops with heavy weapons, including rocket launchers, to an area near the Ta Moan Thom temple.
A spokesperson for Cambodia’s defence ministry, however, said there had been an unprovoked incursion by Thai troops and Cambodian forces had responded in self-defence.
Thailand’s acting prime minister Phumtham Wechayachai said the situation was delicate.
“We have to be careful,” he told reporters. “We will follow international law.”
Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a Facebook post that two Cambodian provinces had come under shelling from the Thai military.
Thailand this week accused Cambodia of placing landmines in a disputed area that injured three soldiers. Phnom Penh denied the claim and said the soldiers had veered off agreed routes and triggered a mine left behind from decades of war.
Cambodia has many landmines left over from its civil war decades ago, numbering in the millions according to de-mining groups.