Reuters
[Photo Credit: Reuters]
Thailand and Cambodia exchanged heavy artillery fire on Friday as their worst fighting in more than a decade stretched for a second day, despite calls from the region and beyond for an immediate ceasefire in an escalating border conflict that has killed at least 16 people.
Thailand’s military reported clashes from before dawn in the Ubon Ratchathani and Surin provinces and said Cambodia had used artillery and Russian-made BM-21 rocket systems. Authorities said 100,000 people had been evacuated from conflict areas on the Thai side.
Both sides blamed each other for starting the conflict on Thursday at a disputed border area, which quickly escalated from small arms fire to heavy shelling in at least six locations 209 km (130 miles) apart along a frontier where sovereignty has been disputed for more than a century.
Reuters journalists in Surin province reported hearing intermittent bursts of explosions on Friday, amid a heavy presence of armed Thai soldiers along roads and gas stations in the largely agrarian area.
A Thai military convoy, including around a dozen trucks, armoured vehicles and tanks, cut across provincial roads ringed by paddy fields and moved toward the border.
The fighting erupted on Thursday just hours after Thailand recalled its ambassador to Phnom Penh the previous night and expelled Cambodia’s envoy, in response to a second Thai soldier losing a limb to a landmine that Bangkok alleged had been laid recently by rival troops. Cambodia has dismissed that as baseless.
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