Displaced villagers at Thai-Cambodian border hope to go home as leaders set to meet for talks

SURIN, Thailand – Rice farmer Samrouy Duangsawai was up early fixing herself a morning meal of sticky rice when a series of loud blasts almost shook her off her feet.

Cambodian heavy artillery shells launched

from across the nearby border had struck the next village just a few hundred metres away, the rising smoke visible in the air. The 67-year-old’s thoughts quickly turned to the two young granddaughters she was helping to raise while their migrant worker parents were pulling shifts at a factory out of town.

Before she had time to fully process the situation, a pickup truck had zoomed to her front door – village leaders had ordered all elderly people and children to evacuate their homes immediately. Other than her grandchildren, Ms Samroy left with nothing but the clothes she was wearing and an old pair of worn-thin blue rubber slippers.

“I was in such shock I couldn’t tell what time of day it was,” she told The Straits Times from an evacuation hub set up at the Surindra Rajabhat university campus in Surin city, in Thailand’s north-east, where more than 3,000 people have camped out since fighting broke out between the Thai and Cambodian militaries on July 24.

The evacuations were part of swiftly executed contingency plans that had been drilled into Thai villagers in Surin along the border since the recent round of tensions flared in the lead-up to May 28, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a brief skirmish between the two armies. At least 30 people have been killed and more than 200,000 people displaced from both sides.

Thai and Cambodian forces extended their clashes at the disputed border into a fourth day on July 27 before Malaysia announced later that evening that the two countries had agreed to Kuala Lumpur acting as mediator in their conflict.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thai Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai

were scheduled to travel to Malaysia on July 28,

Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said on July 27, in what represents the most substantive, if tentative, steps towards peace since the outbreak of hostilities. The Thai government confirmed the meeting and said its defence and foreign ministers would also travel for the talks.

US President Donald Trump had earlier on July 26 called on leaders from both countries to end hostilities and threatened to suspend ongoing negotiations on trade tariffs if they did not.

In Surin, local public health volunteer and rubber plantation farmer Suwannee Yuenyong, 45, said villagers treated evacuation drills and briefings seriously after a similar border flare-up in 2011 resulted in mass panic and traffic gridlock.

She said the plan in her village in Phanom Dong Rak district was for all women, the elderly and children to be first evacuated to predetermined emergency hubs at the first sign of danger. Able-bodied men were to stay behind and tend cattle and guard against looters.

If all else failed, makeshift bunkers and bomb shelters, in some cases constructed using segments of large concrete pipes reinforced with a solid slab over them, offered last-minute protection.

Ms Suwannee told ST that her husband was one of about 30 men in her village to remain behind. While she and her three children felt safe at their evacuation centre in Surin, she said they were all hoping for a swift end to the conflict as they were all missing home, and she was extremely worried about her husband.

“I spoke with him over the phone and he said the shelling was quite intense last night, and he had to spend the night in the bunker,” Ms Suwannee told ST on July 26.

The plights of those displaced in emergency evacuation centres and those sleeping rough in concrete bunkers have been particularly stark, especially when there is still no clear explanation for the political calculations behind allowing a longstanding historical dispute over an under-demarcated border to escalate in such deadly fashion.

What is clearer, however, is that the personal enmity that is still souring in real time between Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodia’s Hun Sen – the patriarchs of the two countries’ leading political families – is providing a major impediment in efforts to de-escalate and negotiate a ceasefire.

“I thanked everyone but said I’d like to ask for some time,” Thaksin, a former prime minister, wrote in a post on X late on July 24, referring to countries that had reached out to mediate. “Because we probably need to let the Thai military do their duty and teach Hun Sen a lesson about his cunning ways first.”

As tensions with Cambodia flared in May, the early conjecture among political observers in Thailand surrounded theories that the influential military establishment was purposefully fanning nationalist sentiment to undermine Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin’s daughter.

Thaksin’s long-running clash with the pro-monarchist and pro-military conservative establishment has been a defining feature of Thailand’s political landscape over the past two decades, and his own tenure as prime minister ended in a coup d’etat in September 2006.

In Cambodia, attention has more recently shifted to domestic politics, with some political analysts asserting that Mr Hun Sen’s desire to bolster his son Hun Manet’s standing also explains his desire to pick a fight with the Shinawatras and Thailand at large.

Mr Hun Sen was responsible for leaking an audio recording of his phone call with Ms Paetongtarn, where she was heard taking a deferential tone to the former Cambodian leader while also labelling her own military commander as being on the “opposing side”. The resulting public backlash has seen large protests in Bangkok calling for her resignation and ultimately led to her suspension from office.

But if the motivation for Mr Hun Sen – who was prime minister spanning five decades before anointing Mr Hun Manet as successor – was to paint his son as a capable military commander, analysts said he has mostly succeeded only in hogging the limelight.

In an effort to ostensibly debunk online rumours that he had fled the country, Mr Hun Sen posted a series of photos on his official Facebook account portraying him in command as he pored over military maps in a war room.

The holes in both domestic political theories, analysts say, is that there are easier avenues to achieve those political objectives without necessarily putting both soldiers and civilians in harm’s way.

In Bangkok, the Shinawatra clan’s dominance had already been on the wane, with Thaksin mired in legal trouble and Ms Paetongtarn struggling in the polls. In Phnom Penh, there are no clear threats to the Hun family’s political dominance, and Cambodia’s military is, on paper, outmatched by Thailand’s larger armed forces, defence analysts said, especially in the air.

“One of the most confusing aspects of this conflict is how little information we have about its origins,” Mr Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst and doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, said. “No one outside a very small circle of Cambodian and Thai high-level officials has a complete picture of what is going on.”

News of potential peace negotiations mediated by Malaysia had yet to filter through Surin’s border villages in Phanom Dong Rak during a visit by ST on July 27.

With almost all residents evacuated, other than some men and their dogs standing guard against looters, the villages were eerily empty and quiet, save for the noise of artillery in the background.

Mr Narin Wongpitak, chief of Khun Han subdistrict in neighbouring Sisaket province, told ST that local communities along the border were on high alert.

“We are trying to do everything we can to make our people safe,” he said.

Both countries have said they want a ceasefire, but disagree over the readiness and sincerity of the opposing side to come to the table, while continuing to trade blame over which side is at fault for continuing hostilities and targeting civilians.

“I made it clear to Honourable President Donald Trump that Cambodia agreed with the proposal for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire between the two armed forces,” Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet posted on Facebook, noting that he had also agreed to Malaysia’s earlier ceasefire proposal which he said Thailand had reneged on.

Thailand’s Acting Prime Minister Phumtham had earlier said that his country could not begin talks while Cambodia was targeting its civilians, and that it was seeking direct bilateral talks over international mediation.

During a visit to the border region in Ubon Ratchathani on July 26, Thaksin, who no longer holds any formal government role, refuted criticism over his X post and denied that the feuding families were a catalyst for the military conflict. But he could not resist taking a further shot, saying Mr Hun Sen liked to stir trouble while “sitting on social media all day like a zombie”.

Back in Surin, villagers from Kap Choeng district were forced to evacuate a second time on July 26 and take shelter at a Buddhist temple, after their initial emergency accommodation at a local school in Prasat district was deemed too close to Cambodia’s strike radius and unsafe.

Unlike other villages where some people remained behind, vegetable vendor Chakkrit Khamnuan, 25, said everyone in his village in Kap Choeng district was ordered to evacuate because its proximity to a Thai military base on the border made it a likely target of Cambodian attacks.

Mr Chakkrit said he usually sells vegetables at a large cross-border market that relies on traders from both countries, and that business at the market had been affected for months as tensions mounted.

Ms Suwannee, the rubber farmer from Phanom Dong Rak, said her entire village was angry at the situation and hoped to be able to return home soon.

“We want the conflict to end as soon as possible with a swift Thai victory to teach Cambodia a lesson to never mess with Thailand again,” she said.