Fresh combat forces Thais, Cambodians to well-worn shelters

Displaced children chased each other on the tarmac of Thailand's Chang International Circuit race track where hundreds of families were sheltering in vast silo-shaped tents.

"I want the government to deal with this decisively so it stops for good," said handyman Boonsong Boonpimay at the racecourse in Buriram city, 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the fraught frontier.

"Otherwise we'll have to keep living like this -- unable to work and constantly on edge," the 51-year-old told AFP.

Thailand and Cambodia have a long-standing dispute over portions of their boundary dating back to its colonial-era demarcation.

Five days of combat in July killed dozens of people and displaced around 300,000 on both sides of the border before a truce took effect.

But all-out fighting flared again along their jungle-clad frontier this week -- with Thailand launching air strikes and Cambodia announcing retaliatory attacks on Tuesday.

At least seven Cambodian civilians and three Thai soldiers have been killed so far, according to officials, while more than 125,000 people have been evacuated on the Thai side alone.

Chang International Circuit owner Newin Chidchob told AFP he was ready for the surge of his displaced compatriots, skeptical this summer's armistice would hold.

"After the clashes last time, when things quieted down and villagers returned home, we did not believe it would truly be peaceful," the former MP said.

"So we worked with the province to set up this system and prepare the site, because we felt that real peace or stability was unlikely."
'Ears open all the time'
Thai and Cambodian troops laid down their arms in July after intervention by US President Donald Trump as well China and Malaysia -- current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Conflict monitors said a follow-on pact failed to adjudicate their core conflict, but Trump nonetheless touted it as a major peace-making achievement of his presidency.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has said he nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for halting the violence.

But cradling her five-year-old son at a makeshift shelter at a temple, Cambodian Ros Sambok lamented how her life was still being uprooted by the conflict.

"It is my third time fleeing home and we have been on alert every day," the 31-year-old said. "I just want peace so the kids can go to school together."

She fled with around 20 family members from her village about seven kilometres from the front line on Monday morning -- but her mental peace has remained broken since the original clashes.

"I could barely sleep in recent months. Authorities told us to be ready all the time," she said.

"It is not easy. Our ears open all time."

Though divided by a contested border, Thai evacuees expressed near-identical complaints about the conflict disrupting their lives again after a brief interlude of peace.

"We live day to day, and we have debts and children to take care of," said 60-year-old Thai rubber farmer Painee Khengnok, displaced from the borderland where he earns his keep.

"Whatever the government needs to do, I just want them to solve this quickly so we can get back to making a normal living."

burs-jts/sco/ceg