Death toll in Thai-Cambodia clashes rises to 16 as 120,000 flee border area
Thai Prime Minister Phatthama Vechichai says the escalation in military exchanges could lead to war.
The death toll from clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops has risen to 15 in Thailand and 15 in Cambodia, according to officials, as more than 120,000 people on both sides of the border separating the two countries have fled the ongoing fighting.
Deadly fighting continued for a second day on Friday as the two countries traded heavy artillery and rocket fire, the bloodiest military confrontation between the two Southeast Asian neighbors in more than a decade.
Thai Prime Minister Phatthama Vechichai told reporters on Friday that the escalation in military exchanges could lead to war. He added that so far, the clashes have involved heavy weapons.
A Thai military official on Friday, outlining the extent of the fighting, said the ongoing clashes had taken place in 12 locations along the disputed border. A military spokesman, Rear Admiral Surasant Kangsiri, told a news conference that Cambodia was continuing to use heavy weapons.
“Thai troops have responded with appropriate supporting fire according to the tactical situation,” the Thai military said in an earlier statement.
Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health reported that at least 14 civilians and one soldier had been killed in Thailand since the fighting began on Thursday, and a local provincial official in Cambodia’s Odar Mainichi border province told Reuters news agency that one person had been killed and five wounded in the Thai attacks.
More than 30 Thai civilians and 15 soldiers were also injured, according to Thailand's health ministry, while about 100,672 people from four Thai provinces bordering Cambodia have been moved to shelters, the AFP news agency quoted Thailand's interior ministry as saying.
More than half of the evacuees were from the province, while the rest were from the provinces of Sisak, Borom and Ubon Ratchathani, Arisit Sampanthart, permanent secretary of the interior ministry, was quoted by the country's Channel 3 television channel as saying.
Citing officials in Cambodia's Preah Vihear province, the Khmer Times news organization said about 20,000 residents had evacuated from the country's northern border with Thailand.
Shelling from Thailand was also reported before dawn on Friday, the Khmer Times reported, citing the Cambodian military.
Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts claimed that the Thai strikes had caused “substantial damage” to the Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO-listed world heritage site, according to the Phnom Penh Post.
Diplomatic sources told AFP news agency that the UN Security Council would hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the border fighting.
On Thursday, Thailand said it scrambled F-16 fighter jets to bomb targets in Cambodia, while Cambodian forces launched long-range rockets towards civilian areas along the Thai border, the Thai military said.
The two countries have accused each other of initiating clashes in a disputed area of the border, which quickly escalated from small arms fire to heavy shelling.
Thailand, a long-standing treaty ally, has called for an immediate end to hostilities.
China, a close ally of Cambodia, said it was deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict and hoped the two countries would “properly resolve their dispute through dialogue and consultation.”
