Farmer Pongsri Rapan, 60, said she lost all her belongings except a wardrobe when her house was destroyed by shelling, but told reporters: “I’m not scared because the army is around me.”
She had “many good Cambodian friends”, she added, and was “sorry our armies are fighting”.
Thai farmers were expected to benefit from the land newly brought under the military’s control once its allocation was finalised, a senior officer told AFP.
“ROBBED US”
Thailand welcomed Cambodian war refugees to the border area after the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime fell in 1979.
Some Cambodian families remained long after.
At the temple shelter, 67-year-old farmer Sok Chork said he settled in Prey Chan in 1980, when the area was landmine-infested and undeveloped.
“When it was forest, it was not theirs. But after Cambodians built concrete homes, they said it was their land,” he told AFP.
The Thais “just robbed us of everything”, he said, adding his home had been bulldozed.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/thailand-cambodia-conflict-villages-displaced-disputed-land-ceasefire-agreement-5914401
