PHNOM PENH – Fresh fighting between Thai and Cambodian troops on Saturday killed at last one Thai soldier, raising the number of dead on both sides to eight in two days in the worst bloodshed since the United Nations called for a ceasefire in February.
Thousands of villagers have been evacuated from the thick, disputed jungle border area around the Ta Moan and Ta Krabey temples, about 150 km (93 miles) west of the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, which saw a deadly four-day standoff in February.
Thai army Lieutenant General Thawatchai Samutsakorn said one Thai soldier had been killed. At least 13 soldiers were wounded, according to the local Phnom Dongrak hospital. That followed the deaths of four Thai and three Cambodian soldiers on Friday.
Cambodian officials have not commented on recent casualties but journalists monitoring army radio in Banteay Ampil, about 15 km (nine miles) from the fighting, told Reuters that a Cambodian soldier had been killed and two were wounded.
The latest clash began before dawn west of Ta Krabey in the Dangrek Mountains and lasted several hours. By afternoon, heavy shelling had stopped but small-arms fire could be heard, witnesses said.
Sovereignty over the ancient, stone-walled Hindu temples -- Preah Vihear, Ta Moan and Ta Krabey -- and the land surrounding them has been in dispute since the withdrawal of the French from Cambodia in the 1950s.
Ta Moan and Ta Krabey, believed built in the 12th century during the Khmer empire, sit on a 10-meter (32-ft) escarpment about 12 km (seven miles) apart in a poorly demarcated, land mine-riddled stretch of land far off the tourist trails.
Before Friday, Thailand and Cambodia jointly patrolled the area largely without incident. Thailand says the temples are in its Surin province according to a 1947 map. Cambodia rejects that and says they are in its Oddar Meanchey province.
A Thai-Cambodian Joint Commission on Demarcation for Land Boundary has jointly surveyed the area since 2000 but has yet to come to a decision on demarcation. In 2008, Thailand accused Cambodia of turning the temples into an army base.
The Khmer empire once encompassed large parts of central Thailand, southern Laos and southern Vietnam before shrinking to present-day Cambodia. Years of war left the area studded with landmines and many temple ruins have been neglected. Reuters
