Thailand-Cambodia Border War: Military Strikes Kill 12 as Nations Exchange Fire
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Fatima Saif
- . July 24, 2025
- . Update: July 25, 2025 12:45 am
A deadly conflict between both states has erupted along the border of Thailand and Cambodia as both countries engage in armed combat by attacking each other with fighter jets and heavy weapons. The South East Asia military conflict between Thailand and Cambodia began in the vicinity of a controversial temple complex and extended to six other border posts very easily. The Thai F-16 aircraft were busy bombing inside Cambodia, where Cambodian troops also fired rockets and mortars back towards Thailand, killing at least 12 people, including an 8-year-old boy.
Thailand F-16 Jets Bomb Cambodia as Fighting Spreads
The Thai military representatives claim that Cambodia initiated the Thailand-Cambodia military conflict by firing a spy drone and then shooting with heavy army equipment using BM21 rockets. Thailand reacted promptly, sending six fighter jets, F16s, which bombed two Cambodian military targets. The conflict in the Thai-Cambodian border soon expanded, and Thailand had to seal all the border checkpoints between the two nations.
Confirming this, the Thai Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin indicated that 11 Thai civilians and one soldier were killed in the Thai-Cambodia military clash. The casualties involved four individuals and an 8-year-old boy, who were killed when Cambodian forces stormed a petrol station, twenty kilometers off the border. The other two were killed as Cambodian shells struck their homesteads.
The Thai authorities displaced the 40,000 civilians in 86 villages to safer grounds due to the war between the Thailand-Cambodia border. Families with children and the elderly are hiding in concrete bomb protection shelters, which are sandbag shielded and covered with car tires.
Diplomatic Crisis Worsens Thailand-Cambodia Relations
Thailand-Cambodia border war has proved to be a great diplomatic tension between the two neighbours. Both countries are accusing each other of initiating the war and they have recalled their ambassadors.
The Thai Foreign Ministry suspected that Cambodia had bombed civilian settlements, such as a hospital, in a war crime. They threatened to harden self-defense when Cambodia persisted with the Thailand-Cambodia military skirmish.
Cambodia invaded Thailand and included the Defense Ministry, saying that their armed forces were aggressively violent, when all they were doing was defending themselves. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet has asked for a UNSC emergency session to consider the Thailand-Cambodia border war.
The two countries have exchanged their diplomatic relations to the minimal level and expelled the diplomats of each other country. Cambodia has also denied Thailand imports of fuel, gas, fruits and vegetable.
