Thailand urges nationals to leave Cambodia over border clashes
The embassy in Phnom Penh said in a Facebook post that Thais should leave Cambodia "as soon as possible" unless they had urgent reasons to remain.
Armed clashes broke out between Thailand and Cambodia along a disputed area of their border, both countries said, accusing each other of firing the first shots after weeks of tensions and diplomatic disputes.
The neighbours are locked in a row over an area known as the Emerald Triangle, where the borders of both countries and Laos meet.
The area is also home to several ancient temples.
The dispute has dragged on for decades, spiraling into military clashes more than 15 years ago and again in May, when a Cambodian solider was killed in a firefight.
A Cambodian government source told AFP that violence broke out again this morning near two temples on the border between the Thai province of Surin and Cambodia's Oddar Meanchey.
"The Thai military violated the territorial integrity of the kingdom of Cambodia by launching an armed assault on Cambodian forces stationed to defend the nation's sovereign territory," defence ministry spokesperson Maly Socheata said in a statement.
"In response, the Cambodian armed forces exercised their legitimate right to self defence, in full accordance with international law, to repel the Thai incursion and protect Cambodia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," she added.
According to the Thai army, the incident began around 7:35am (01:35am Irish time) when a unit guarding Ta Muen temple heard a Cambodian drone overhead.
It added that following this, six armed Cambodian soldiers, including one carrying a rocket-propelled grenade, approached a barbed-wired fence in front of the Thai post.
Thai soldiers shouted to warn them, the army said, but added Cambodian forces opened fire toward the eastern side of the temple, about 200m from the Thai base.
The clash came after Thailand recalled its ambassador to Cambodia late yesterday and said it would expel Cambodia's envoy in Bangkok after a second Thai soldier in the space of a week lost a limb to a landmine that Thailand said had been laid recently in the disputed area.
Thailand's military said Cambodia deployed a surveillance drone before sending troops with heavy weapons to an area near disputed Ta Moan Thom temple along the eastern border, around 360km from the capital Bangkok
Cambodian troops opened fire and two Thai soldiers were wounded, a Thai army spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that Cambodia had used multiple weapons, including rocket launchers.
However, a spokesperson for Cambodia's defence ministry said there had been an unprovoked incursion by Thai troops and Cambodian forces had responded in self-defence.
Thailand deployed an F-16 fighter jet for action against the Cambodian military along the border between the two southeast Asian neighbours, one of six being readied, the Second Army region said on social media post.
Cambodia's influential former premier Hun Sen in a Facebook post said two Cambodian provinces had come under shelling from the Thai military.
Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai said the situation was delicate.
"We have to be careful," he told reporters, adding the country "will follow international law".
"For more than a century, Thailand and Cambodia have contested sovereignty at various un-demarcated points along their 817km land border, which has led to skirmishes overs everal years and at least a dozen deaths, including during a weeklong exchange of artillery in 2011," he said.
Tensions were reignited in May following the killing of a Cambodian soldier during a brief exchange of gunfire, which escalated into a diplomatic crisis and now has triggered armed clashes.
An attempt by Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to resolve the recent tensions via a call with Mr Sen, the contents of which were leaked, kicked off a political storm in Thailand, leading to her suspension by a court.
Cambodia has many landmines left over from its civil war decades ago, numbering in the millions according to de-mining groups.
But Thailand maintains landmines have been placed at the border area recently, which Cambodia has described as baseless allegations.
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