Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia has continued for a third day, with cross-border shelling and air raids forcing more than half a million civilians to flee their homes and seek shelter, according to authorities.
Officials from the two Southeast Asian neighbours on Wednesday also accused each other of restarting the conflict that has killed at least 13 soldiers and civilians so far this week and led more than 500,000 people from both sides of the border to evacuate for safety.
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“More than 400,000 people have been moved to safe shelters” across seven provinces, Thailand’s Ministry of Defence spokesperson Surasant Kongsiri told reporters at a news conference.
“Civilians have had to evacuate in large numbers due to what we assessed as an imminent threat to their safety,” he said.
The Thai military also reported that rockets fired from Cambodia had landed near the Phanom Dong Rak Hospital in Surin on Wednesday morning, prompting patients and hospital staff to take cover in a bunker.
In neighbouring Cambodia, “101,229 people have been evacuated to safe shelters and relatives’ homes in five provinces”, Cambodian Ministry of National Defence spokeswoman Maly Socheata said.
Cambodianess, a website operated by the Cambodian Media Broadcasting Corporation, reported that Thai F-16 jets had attacked two areas in the country, while Thai shelling continued in three other areas.
Thailand’s Matichon Online news portal also reported that the country’s military had deployed F-16s to attack “one Cambodian military target” along the border on Wednesday morning.
Cambodian rockets and artillery fire also targeted 12 front-line areas in four Thai provinces early in the morning, according to Thailand’s The Nation newspaper, citing military sources. There were no immediate reports on casualties.
Fighting continues on border
Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Surin province in Thailand, said the Thai military reported earlier on Wednesday that fighting took place in almost all of the provinces bordering Cambodia.
In Surin province alone, there were reports of exchanges of fire in five different locations, McBride said, adding that many thousands have evacuated.
“Most people have left here,” he said.
“Hundreds of thousands of people now on both sides of the border have sought refuge as they have done in the past and as the fighting continues,” he added.
“The Thais have been saying that they do want peace. But they said peace has to come with what they call security and safety of the Thai people. As the attacks are continuing, they have not achieved that yet,” McBride said.
At one camp housing some 10,000 displaced people, Lo said conditions are “far from ideal” with many people sheltering under makeshift tents of blue tarpaulin, while others do not even have materials to build shelters to protect from the heat and rain.
“People here are saying there is not enough aid going around,” Lo said.
“But the bigger fear or the bigger concern here is the fear. Fear that the violence could spread further, and right now, there are people packing because we’ve been hearing loud explosions even though we are kilometres away from where the fighting is taking place. So people are packing and getting ready to move to another evacuation camp,” he said.
“But the problem is that wherever they go, it seems like danger will follow them.”
Lo added that Cambodia’s Senate President and former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who is the commander of the military, suggested retaliatory attacks on Thailand, and the conflict is unlikely to end quickly.
‘Who else could say I’m going to make a phone call and stop a war’
This week’s clashes are the deadliest since five days of fighting in July that killed dozens and displaced some 300,000 people on both sides of the Thailand-Cambodia border before a shaky truce was agreed, following an intervention by United States President Donald Trump.
Trump said late on Tuesday that he would make a phone call to stop the renewed fighting.
“I am going to have to make a phone call. Who else could say I’m going to make a phone call and stop a war of two very powerful countries, Thailand and Cambodia,” Trump said at a rally in the US state of Pennsylvania.
However, Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow told Al Jazeera that he saw no potential for negotiations, adding that Bangkok did not start the clashes.
Cambodia’s Defence Ministry also said on Tuesday that its troops had no choice but to take action, accusing Thailand of “indiscriminately and brutally targeting civilian residential areas” with artillery shells, allegations Bangkok rejected.
Human Rights Watch’s Sunai Phasuk said the fighting between the two countries was “intensifying rapidly” and that Cambodia, particularly, had used long-range weapons indiscriminately.
The use of such weapons by Cambodia posed a serious danger for civilians who had evacuated their homes in large numbers for shelters, but there was “no assurance of safety” due to the inaccuracy of the long-range rocket fire, Sunai said.
Officials in Thailand, Sunai added, were reportedly “not in the mood for negotiation” due to a shared feeling among politicians and the military that Cambodia had repeatedly breached the earlier ceasefire agreement by planting landmines in Thai territory “without facing any consequences”.
“We know that intervention from President Trump is very imminent … But Thailand may try to hold on for as long as possible to try to go further into the territory of Cambodia to claim strategic points as much as possible before it is forced by President Trump to stop the fight,” Sunai said.
He said Cambodia was likely not expecting the scale of this week’s Thai military operation, particularly “claiming territory from Cambodia and bombing locations inside Cambodia on a daily basis”.
“The Cambodian leadership, the government of Prime Minister Hun Manet, is banking on imminent intervention by the US to get Thailand to stop the military response,” he added.
In a further sign of worsening relations between the two countries, Cambodia announced on Wednesday that it was withdrawing from the Southeast Asian Games, which are currently being held in Thailand, citing “serious concerns”.
Tensions have simmered between Bangkok and Phnom Penh since Thailand last month suspended de-escalation measures that were agreed at an October summit in Trump’s presence in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, after a Thai soldier was maimed by a landmine blast that Bangkok said was newly laid by Cambodia. Cambodian officials have rejected the allegation.
The conflict between the two neighbours stems back to the colonial-era demarcation of their 800km (500-mile) frontier, and competing claims to historic temples along parts of the un-demarcated border, which have periodically spilled over into armed conflict.