{"id":1928,"date":"2025-07-25T08:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/25\/death-toll-in-thai-cambodia-clashes-rises-to-16-as-120000-flee-border-area\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T08:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:36:08","slug":"death-toll-in-thai-cambodia-clashes-rises-to-16-as-120000-flee-border-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/25\/death-toll-in-thai-cambodia-clashes-rises-to-16-as-120000-flee-border-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Death toll in Thai-Cambodia clashes rises to 16 as 120,000 flee border area"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The death toll from clashes between Thai and Cambodian<\/a> troops has risen to 15 in Thailand and one in Cambodia, according to authorities, as more than 120,000 people living along both sides of the border separating the two countries flee the ongoing fighting.<\/p>\n

Deadly fighting continued for a second day on Friday as both countries traded heavy artillery and rocket fire, the bloodiest military confrontation between the two Southeast Asian neighbours in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation has intensified and could escalate into a state of war\u201d,\u00a0 Acting Thai PM Phumtham Wechayachai ominously told reporters on Friday. For now, the clashes have involved heavy weapons, he added.<\/p>\n

The ongoing clashes have taken place in 12 locations along the disputed border, up from six the day before, a Thai military official said on Friday, indicating a widening of the fighting. Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a military spokesperson, told a news conference that Cambodia had continued to use heavy weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThai forces have responded with appropriate supporting fire in accordance with the tactical situation,\u201d the Thai military said in an earlier statement.<\/p>\n

Thailand\u2019s Ministry of Public Health reported that at least 14 civilians and one soldier were killed in Thailand when fighting broke out on Thursday, and a local provincial official in Cambodia\u2019s Oddar Meanchey border province told the Reuters news agency that one person was killed and five wounded in Thai attacks.<\/p>\n

More than 30 Thai civilians and 15 soldiers were also injured, according to Thailand\u2019s Health Ministry, while some 100,672 people from four Thai provinces bordering Cambodia have been moved to shelters, Thailand\u2019s Ministry of Interior was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.<\/p>\n

Arsit Sampantharat, the Thai Interior Ministry\u2019s permanent secretary, was quoted by the country\u2019s Channel 3 television channel as saying more than half of those evacuated were from Surin province, while the rest were from the provinces of Sisaket, Buriram and Ubon Ratchathani.<\/p>\n

Quoting officials in Cambodia\u2019s Preah Vihear province, the Khmer Times news organisation said about 20,000 residents have evacuated from the country\u2019s northern border with Thailand.<\/p>\n

Thailand has opened more than 300 evacuation centres, according to officials.<\/p>\n

\"Thai-Cambodian
Thai residents who fled homes following clashes between Thai and Cambodian soldiers rest at an evacuation center in Surin province, Thailand, Friday, July 25, 2025 [Sakchai Lalit\/AP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reporting from Surin province, near the Cambodian border, Al Jazeera\u2019s Tony Cheng said the government described the frontier as \u201cvery long and porous\u201d, complicating efforts to track the movement of displaced people. \u201cIt is very hard to see how many people are here in the evacuation centre\u2026 because there are people arriving all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Thai authorities say they are meeting the immediate needs of those seeking refuge, with food, water and medical care provided at the temporary shelters.<\/p>\n

However, local accounts paint a grim picture. \u201cSome of the older people that we have talked to said what they have seen in the last 48 hours, that the fighting they\u2019ve seen has been the fiercest in this disputed area since the late 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge had complete control of the other side of the border,\u201d Cheng reported.<\/p>\n

The violence, centred around a contested section of the Thai-Cambodian border, has prompted calls for calm from regional actors. \u201cPeople are trying to talk down to both sides, urging leaders to de-escalate,\u201d Cheng added.<\/p>\n

Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand\u2019s Prime Minister from 2001-2006, said that \u201cmany countries are concerned about the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, offering to help mediate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thanked everyone but said I\u2019d like to ask for some time. Because we probably need to let the Thai military do their duty to teach Hun Sen a lesson about his cunning ways first,\u201d Thaksin wrote in a post on X, referring to Cambodia\u2019s still influential long-ruling former prime minister.<\/p>\n

Thaksin and Hun Sen enjoyed a more-than three decade relationship initially characterised by suspicion, but which evolved into a fraternal bond.<\/p>\n

UN to hold an emergency meeting<\/h2>\n

Shelling from Thailand was also reported before dawn on Friday, the Khmer Times quoted the Cambodian military as saying.<\/p>\n

Cambodia\u2019s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts claimed that Thailand\u2019s strikes had caused \u201csubstantial damage\u201d to the Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site, according to The Phnom Penh Post.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic sources told the AFP news agency that the United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the border fighting.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Thailand said it scrambled an F-16 fighter jet to bomb targets in Cambodia, while Cambodian forces launched long-range rockets towards civilian areas along the Thai border, Thailand\u2019s\u00a0military said.<\/p>\n

Both countries have blamed each other for starting the clashes in a disputed area of the border, which quickly escalated from small arms fire to heavy shelling.<\/p>\n

The United States, a longtime treaty ally of Thailand, has called for an immediate end to the hostilities.<\/p>\n

China, a close ally of Cambodia, said it was deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict and hoped that both countries \u201cwill properly solve their dispute through dialogue and consultation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority has cited a Cambodian military field report from early Friday saying cluster munitions were used twice by Thailand in the space of 90 minutes in Preah Vihear, a border province.<\/p>\n

The statement expressed alarm over what it called a serious violation of humanitarian norms.<\/p>\n

Thailand\u2019s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claims made by Cambodia.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The death toll from clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops has risen to 15 in Thailand and one in Cambodia, according to authorities, as more than 120,000 people living along both sides of the border separating the two countries flee the ongoing fighting. Deadly fighting continued for a second day on Friday as both countries … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}