Thailand deploys a fighter plane in climbing border disputes with Cambodia, killing at least 12

A Thai fighter plane F-16 bombed targets in Cambodia, the two parties said, as weeks of tension on a border dispute turned into confrontations on Thursday who killed at least 12 people, including 11 civilians.

Of the six F-16 fighter planes that Thailand prepared to deploy along the disputed border, one of the planes fired in Cambodia and destroyed a military target, the Thai army said. The two countries accused themselves of starting the shock early Thursday.

“We used air power against military targets as expected,” Thai army spokesman Richa Suksuwanon told journalists. Thailand has also closed its border with Cambodia.

The Cambodia Ministry of Defense said that the jets had abandoned two bombs on a road and that it “firmly condemns the reckless and brutal military aggression of the Kingdom of Thailand against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cambodia”.

The skirmishes occurred after Thailand recalled its ambassador to Cambodia on Wednesday and declared that she would expel the Cambodia envoy to Bangkok, after a second Thai soldier in the space of a week lost a member because of a terrestrial mine which, according to Bangkok, had been recently deposited in the litigation area.

For more than a century, Thailand and Cambodia have challenged sovereignty at various points not started along their 817 km land border, which has led to skirmishes over several years.

The Minister of Health in Thailand said 11 civilians, including a child, and a soldier were killed in artillery bombings by Cambodian forces, while 24 civilians and seven soldiers were injured. There was no immediate speech of victims in Cambodia.

“The Thai army condemns Cambodia for having used weapons for attacking civilians in Thailand. Thailand is ready to protect sovereignty and our people against inhuman action,” said the country’s army in a statement.

Regional powers want calm

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it was deeply concerned about continuous developments along the Thailand-Cambodia border and hopes that the two parties will properly approach problems by dialogue and consultations. China will play a constructive role in promoting de-escalation, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, told a regular press conference, adding that China confirms a just and impartial position.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia, the current president of the Southeast Asean Asian Bloc in which Thailand and Cambodia are also members, have urged calm and said that he would speak to the leaders of the two countries to peacefully resolve their dispute.

Thai residents, including children and the elderly, ran to shelters built in concrete and fortified with sandbags and car tires in the province of the Surin border.

“How many laps has been dismissed? It is countless,” said an unidentified woman in the public service of Thai broadcasting when he was hiding in the refuge while shots and explosions were heard intermittently in the background.

The Cambodia Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Thailand’s air strikes were “not caused” and called on its neighbor to withdraw its forces and “refrain from any other provocative action that could degenerate the situation”.

The tensions were revived in May following the murder of a Cambodian soldier during a brief exchange of shots, who turned into a diplomatic crisis in its own right and has now triggered armed clashes.

The clashes started early Thursday near the disputed temple of your moan along the border between Cambodia and Thailand, about 360 kilometers east of the Thai capital Bangkok.

The Minister of Health in Thailand, Somsak Thepsuthin, told journalists the Cambodian bombing included a strike in a hospital in the province of Surin, which, according to him, should be considered a war crime.

“Artillery Shell came across people’s houses,” Sutthirot Charoenthanasak, Kabcheing district chief in Surin province, added that the authorities had evacuated 40,000 civilians from 86 border villages in safer places. “Two people are dead,” he added.

Costrone accusation refused by Cambodia

Video sequences have shown a thick black smoke plume riding a service station in the neighboring Thai Sisaket Province, while the firefighters rushed to turn off the fire.

In total, eight people were killed and 15 injured in Sisaket, said the Minister of Health, adding that another person was killed in the border province of Ubon Ratchathani.

The army said that Cambodia had deployed a surveillance drone before sending troops with heavy weapons, including rocket launchers, in an area near the temple of your Gloan Thom.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Cambodia of Defense, however, said that there had been an incursion not caused by Thai troops and the Cambodian forces had responded in self-defense.

The acting Prime Minister of Thailand, Phumtham Wechayachai, said that the situation was delicate.

“We have to be careful,” he told journalists. “We will follow international law.”

The Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, said in an article on Facebook that two Cambodian provinces had been under the bombing of the Thai army.

Thailand accused Cambodia this week this week of having placed terrestrial mines in a disputed area which injured three soldiers. Phnom Penh denied the complaint and declared that the soldiers had turned the agreed routes and launched a mine left from decades of war.

Cambodia has many terrestrial mines in its civil war decades ago, in the number of millions of groups to de-mining.