BBC visits villages caught in the middle

Plash wire rolls are now operated across the center of the village Cambodia calling Chouk Chey, and across sugar cane fields.

Behind them, directly above the border, long black screens from the ground rise, and the Thai soldiers who set them.

These are the new solid boundaries between the two countries, which were once open and easily crossed by people from both sides.

Then, at 15:20 local time on August 13, this changed.

“The Thai soldiers came and asked us to leave,” said House Malis. “Then they put a shaving wire. I asked if I could go back to get my cooking utensils. They gave me only 20 minutes.”

It is one of 13 families cut from homes and fields on the other side of the wire where they say they live and work for decades.

Signs have now been established by the Thai authorities warning Kamodians that they were illegally encroached on Thai lands.

In Chouk Chey, they argue, the borders should work in a straight line between the corrected and installed border signs that have been agreed and installed more than a century ago.

Thailand says it is just securing its territory, given the current situation of the conflict with Cambodia. This is not the way you see Cambodia.

Months of tension erupted along the disputed parts from their borders to an open conflict in July, leaving about 40 people. Since then, a fragile ceasefire has been held, although the war of words, which national feelings fed on social media have kept both sides on the edge of the abyss.

The BBC was in the border areas of Cambodia, where I met people who fell in the middle and see some of the damage left by the five days of bombing and bombing.

In Chouk Chey, province’s governor Om Rithery was involved in the economic impact on Thailand. They are estimated that they lose a million dollars per day in customs revenue from closing the border.

No one has yet reached a number of the cost of the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, but it is definitely high.

Billions of dollars in the annual trade slowed down to meager. Hundreds of thousands of Cambod workers left Thailand, and Thailand tourists stopped in the other direction. The new Chinese airport station that was built in Sim Reeb, a gateway to the famous temple complex in Angkor Wat, is deserted.

We have also shown videos of frustrated population with a shaving wire in front of Thai soldiers once.

The ruler said that they were now informed of avoiding confrontations, but the anger poured into another confrontation with the Thai forces on September 4.

In northern Cambodia, there are other clear costs of war.

The PRAH VIHEAR Temple, which floats at the top of a forest cliff next to the border, is at the heart of the conflict between the two countries, and historical novels, each of which loves to tell him about himself.

It is still difficult to accept Thai nationalists difficulty in accepting the 1962 ruling of the International Court of Justice, which recognized the temple as the Cambodian land because the former Thai governments have failed to challenge the map wearing the French that it has placed there. But ICJ did not rule in other disputed areas on the border, leaving the seeds of today’s struggle.

Access to a wonderful 1,000 -year -old temple was much easier than Thai side. Our four -wheel drive car struggled on the sharp road that the Cambodians did to climb the cliff.

Once the temple complex entered, it was clear that he suffered in artillery exchange in late July: two old stone stairs were destroyed while other parts of the temple were cut or broken by dandruff fire, and the walls that shrapnel carry, with dozens of rain -filled vehicles on the ground.

Cambodians say they have recorded more than 140 explosions in and around the complex, which they say is from the Thai bombing on July 24 and 25.

Officials from the Cambodian Mine Work Center also pointed to unprocessed cluster munitions, a prohibited weapon in most of the world, but the Thai army admitted its use.

The Thai army denies shooting the temple, which is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

He accuses Cambodia of placing soldiers and weapons inside the temple during the fighting, although we have not seen any evidence of this, and it was difficult to imagine any large weapons on the sharp road to the temple complex.

Both countries now use issues like this to try to sympathize international sympathy.

Cambodia complained to UNESCO of the damage to her, and she describes 18 of its soldiers who were captured immediately after the ceasefire.

Thailand showed evidence that the Cambodian forces still place landmines along the border, injuring many Thai soldiers, which they say are worse in their commitment to honor the ceasefire.

However, all the Cambodian officials whom we met emphasized their passion for ending the conflict and restoring relations with their largest neighbor. Behind this, although another anxiety was wandering in the history of Cambodi: being a smaller country surrounded by more powerful neighbors.

Both sides suffer from the closure of the borders, but the most poorest of Cambodia is more than that.

“You cannot ascend the ant against an elephant,” says Swos Yara, a spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. “We have to accept that we are a small country, and not like the elephant. How can the smaller country ignite this problem?”

But this is exactly what Thailand accuses the Cambodian government of doing it. Independent research conducted by the Australian Strategic Institute shows a pattern of military reinforcement along the border several months before the extension of the fighting on a large scale in July, most of them by the Cambodian forces.

Then, in June, former Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was still the strongest figure in Cambodia, leaked a conversation with the then Thai Prime Minister Paitongtarn Shinawatra, in which she appeared to make concessions and criticized her army.

This embarrassment, which caused the suspension of the Thai Constitutional Court, then dismissed it.

Thailand describes this as the first time that the leader of a member of ASEAN (Southeast Asia Bloc has intervened both countries) to cause a political crisis in a neighboring country.

It has undoubtedly killed the conflict, which makes it difficult for any Thai government to now build a boundary stance on the border.

It is difficult to know why the fare and experienced politician such as Hun Sen chose to destroy his old friendship with the Shinwatra family and the escalation of border tension. The Cambodian government appears to be not ready to address questions about leakage.

“The leakage problem is only a small issue, compared to what was happening in Bangkok, where the competing factions are trying to obtain power in the administration,” says Souss Yara, who blamed the Thai army for using the conflict to enhance its influence.

Instead, he repeated Cambodia’s long -term invitation to Thailand to accept the disputed French map and enter the International Court of Justice.

While politicians and officials continue to the conflict, many compounds who were displaced due to the fighting did not return home, despite the dark conditions in the temporary camps they were transferred to.

Five thousand families lived under the primitive tarpaulin fabric in the camp we visited, surrounded by clay and minimal sewage.

A shared kitchen tree on potato soup for their dinner.

On the Thai side, where the conditions in the shelter were much better, all the displaced went home within days of the ceasefire.

“The authorities tell us that the situation is not yet good,” said a woman in the Kamboudi camp. “While I live near the border, I do not dare to return.”

It is true that there are still inverted munitions left five days of bombing.

But the flood of misleading on the conflict in Cambodia, which, without evidence, warned of imminent Thai attacks and the use of toxic gas, created a climate of fear that prevents people from returning to their homes.

A large mark has been placed through the main path that passes through the camp that reads “Cambodia needs peace – final.”

This was a feeling we heard from everyone we spoke to in Cambodia.

But in order to happen, the leaders, civilians and military personnel, in both countries, need to alleviate the uncompromising discourse of nationalism and which distinguishes their conflict now.