Families flee under fire as conflict escalates on the Thai Cambodian border
Families flee under fire as conflict escalates on the Thai Cambodian border
09/12: As fighting intensifies along the Thai Cambodian border, families are fleeing in fear, leaving behind their homes, livelihoods, and any sense of safety.
Nineteen-year-old Saly, seven months pregnant, escaped with her husband Tola, 21, when heavy clashes erupted near Takrabie Temple, one of the frontline locations engulfed in violence.
Tola told ActionAid: “I heard the gunshots and became terrified. We ran to shelter in the trench at our home, and when I stepped back out, a piece of shrapnel hit my leg.”
The young couple fled alongside their mother, leaving behind the little stability they had.
Saly told ActionAid: “The schools in our village were damaged, and the kids cannot go to school. We had already harvested our rice, but we haven’t gotten it sold yet. With the conflict breaking out, we now have no income and limited access to food.”
ActionAid Cambodia is working with local partners to support displaced communities, but the needs are growing by the hour.
At 75 years old, Soy was at the village pagoda when the explosions shook the ground around Takrabie Temple.
Soy told ActionAid: “I held my grandchild so tightly against my chest, my body trembling as we pushed forward through the mass of frightened villagers. I was shaking the whole time. I just kept hugging my grandchild, afraid something would happen to us.”
Soy and her grandchild reached the displacement camp safely, but the insecurity persists.
ActionAid Cambodia, together with local partners, is supporting families with emergency essentials including food, hygiene supplies, and safe temporary shelter. However, the scale of the crisis is rapidly outpacing available resources.
Chantara Kimsan, Country Director of ActionAid Cambodia, said: “Watching conflict break out like this again is devastating. We have already seen lives lost, but it’s the long-term scars this kind of conflict leaves on communities that are truly unbearable. When schools are destroyed, when families lose everything overnight, when women and girls become even more vulnerable, it shatters futures. This must end. Civilians cannot keep paying the price.
“We cannot ignore this: conflict is one of the most dangerous places for women and girls. It exposes them to the highest risks of rape, trafficking, and brutal violence, simply because systems meant to protect them collapse overnight. When essential services break down and support networks disappear, women are left carrying impossible burdens with the fewest protections. This is the hidden emergency beneath the gunfire, and it is costing women and girls their safety, dignity, and their futures.
“ActionAid urgently calls on all parties to uphold the ceasefire, to exercise maximum restraint, and to protect civilians without exception. We further call on the international community and both governments to return immediately to agreed mechanisms for peaceful border resolution, fully adhere to international law, and honour previously signed commitments.”
ENDS
Chantara Kimsan, Country Director of ActionAid Cambodia, is available as spokesperson. Please contact the press office at media-enquiries@actionaid.org for requests.