By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BANGKOK/PHNOM PENH (Worthy News) – Thailand and neighboring Cambodia moved towards war on Thursday with a Thai F-16 fighter jet bombing Cambodian targets across the border as a border dispute escalated into clashes that reportedly killed at least 12 people, including 11 civilians.
Of the six F-16 fighter planes that Thailand readied to deploy along the disputed border, one of the aircraft fired into Cambodia and destroyed a military target, the Thai army said. The Thai army added that it carried out airstrikes on two Cambodian military installations.
Both countries accused each other of starting the fighting early Thursday.
Footage reviewed by Worthy News purportedly showed the Royal Cambodian Army shelling several Thai border towns with multiple rocket launchers.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said the shelling was in response to actions by the Thai army near temples in the provinces of Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear, and Ubon Ratchathani.
The Cambodian leader requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council in response to the violence, saying it “gravely threatened peace in the region”.
The Royal Cambodian Army shelled several Thai border towns with multiple rocket launchers, witnesses said.
CLOSING BORDERS
In response, Thailand announced it had closed its border with Cambodia because of these attacks.
Thailand’s Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said 11 civilians, including an eight-year-old boy, and a soldier had been killed in artillery shelling by Cambodian forces.
He said 24 civilians and seven military personnel had been wounded.
Somsak told reporters that Cambodia’s actions, including an attack on a hospital, should be “considered war crimes.”
The fighting has led to the evacuation of at least 40,000 civilians from 86 villages near the border to safer locations, according to authorities in Thailand’s Surin province.
Residents were seen fleeing to bomb shelters built of concrete and fortified with sandbags and car tyres.
Relations between Thailand and Cambodia have escalated in recent months due to an armed conflict in territory claimed by both sides.
HISTORICAL DISPUTE
The conflict between the two mainly Buddhist nations is part of a decades-long border dispute, particularly over the Preah Vihear temple.
Observers said similar clashes occurred in 2008 and 2011.
Amid regional calls for mediation, Thailand’s caretaker Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters that fighting had to stop before negotiations.
He said there had been “no declaration of war” and that the fighting was not spreading to other provinces.
However, with fighting rapidly escalating, there were concerns Thursday that the clashes could rapidly escalate into a broader regional armed conflict.
It was not immediately clear what impact the fighting would have on minorities, including Christians, who are a tiny part of both nations’ populations.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Britain, France, and Germany blamed Israel for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and demanded that Israel lift “restrictions” on aid.
Russian and Ukrainian officials have met briefly in Istanbul, Turkey, for the latest round of talks aimed at ending Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II. The session was overshadowed by renewed fighting between the two countries, killing at least three and injuring more than 30 others.
French President Emmanuel Macron sparked a diplomatic firestorm Thursday by announcing that France will formally recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly this September.
After nearly three weeks of intensive U.S.- and Qatari-mediated negotiations with Hamas in Doha, both Israel and the United States have recalled their negotiating teams, citing a lack of genuine progress and deep-rooted ideological obstacles from the terror group that continue to stall a potential deal.
Despite weeks of vocal demands for transparency surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein case, Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a Republican-led resolution that would have unsealed all court documents related to the late sex offender and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
A disturbing wave of antisemitic incidents has erupted across Europe in recent weeks, targeting Israeli tourists and Jewish communities with increasing frequency and violence. From Greece to Germany, Switzerland to Belgium, attacks, threats, and legal actions against Israelis are raising alarms among Jewish leaders and government officials alike.
Hours after ceasefire negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations broke down once again in Istanbul, both sides launched punishing strikes on each other’s resort cities along the Black Sea, escalating a war now deep into its fourth year.