Cambodian PM accuses Thai forces of evicting civilians on border

Cambodia’s chief Hun Manet has accused Thailand of stopping greater than 20 households from returning to their houses on the disputed border, based on his letter to the pinnacle of the U.N. launched on Thursday (September 18, 2025).

The Thai military mentioned the Cambodian residents had “illegally occupied” Thai territory.

The Southeast Asian neighbours agreed a truce in late July following 5 days of clashes that killed no less than 43 individuals on either side— the newest eruption of a long-standing dispute over contested border temples on their 800-kilometre (500-mile) frontier.

Both sides have since traded accusations of ceasefire violations.

On Wednesday (September 17, 2025), Thai forces fired rubber bullets and tear gasoline at a number of hundred Cambodian protesters throughout a stand-off in a disputed border village, a transfer that Phnom Penh mentioned injured practically 30 individuals, together with a soldier and a Buddhist monk.

In a letter dated September 17 to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Hun Manet mentioned Thai forces had “widened the conflict zone by erecting barbed wire and barricades”, and “forcibly” evicted Cambodian civilians from their “long-settled lands” in two border villages in northwestern Banteay Meanchey province since final month.

“Twenty-five families have already been blocked from their homes and fields,” Hun Manet wrote, including {that a} Thai navy spokesperson had threatened extra evictions, “potentially affecting hundreds of households comprised of about a thousand inhabitants”.

July’s navy clashes between Cambodia and Thailand have been their deadliest in many years, with 300,000 individuals additionally pressured to flee their houses alongside the border.