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Cambodia has for the first time reported fatalities in its conflict with Thailand, taking the death toll to more than 30 as the two countries’ worst fighting in years expanded to include new areas along their shared border and Phnom Penh accused Bangkok of a naval incursion.
A spokesperson for Cambodia’s military said on Saturday that 13 people, including eight civilians, had been killed since the clashes began three days ago. Thailand has moved eight vessels into Cambodia’s maritime area, she said, calling it a “provocative act”.
Cambodia’s defence ministry said that as of 4pm local time, Thailand was “still aggressively invading Cambodia”, and that Thai troops had expanded their incursion to two additional border provinces, Pursat and Banteay Meanchey.
Thailand had reported seven soldiers and 13 civilians dead by Saturday.
Cambodia and Thailand have been in dispute for more than a century over three Khmer-era Hindu temples near their shared border, in a conflict that last escalated into serious fighting in 2011.
On Thursday clashes broke out in a disputed area near the Ta Muen temple, which both countries claim, after Thailand accused Cambodia of laying landmines that injured two Thai soldiers.
ASEAN, the south-east Asian regional bloc currently chaired by Malaysia, has called for a ceasefire and the UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting on Friday to discuss the crisis.
On Saturday Thailand’s military warned people in the border area that Cambodia might launch Chinese PHL-03 long-range missiles, which Cambodia’s military dismissed as “fake news”.
Cambodia accused Thailand of firing heavy artillery shells in multiple locations. On Saturday afternoon booms and thuds could be heard from a distance in Samrong, a city in Oddar Meanchey province, about 40km from the border.
At a provincial hospital in the town Uon, Sy, 40, a villager from a border area near the disputed Ta Krabey temple, was limping after what he said was an injury to his leg caused by shell fragments on Friday morning. “I don’t want to see a war,” he said. “I’m afraid that more people will get injured like me.”
Thailand has evacuated over 130,000 people from the border area and Cambodia at least 35,000.
In Bat Thkao village in Oddar Meanchey province, thousands of people who had fled the border area were camping out in the open under tarpaulins on the grounds of a primary school.
Thnam Sopheak, 30, said she had fled her village near the Ta Muen temple with her family after explosions shook her home and drones that she believed were from Thailand flew overhead.
She said her husband had temporarily returned to tend the family’s livestock, but would come back to Bat Thkao.
“Thailand wants the Ta Muen temple, and Cambodia also wants it because it’s part of our territory,” she said. Near where she was sitting, crowds of displaced people massed around two trucks distributing bottled water, rice and packaged food.
