Evacuees from Cambodia-Thai border urged to return home

Cambodian war evacuees received aid from the Cambodian Red Cross.

People's Daily Online
February 23, 2011

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's wife Bun Rany on Wednesday encouraged the evacuees from the deadly armed clashes on the disputed border between Cambodia and Thailand to return home as the tension has eased.

Bun Rany, who is the president of Cambodian Red Cross, visited 2,686 families in a refugees camp in Preah Vihear province's Kulen district. The remaining evacuees were out of the total 3,200 families who fled the clashes on Feb. 4-7.

"She has advised those evacuees to return home as the tension has eased," Nhim Vanda, the first vice-president of the Cambodian National Committee for Disaster Management, told Xinhua by telephone.

"She also informed those evacuees about the ASEAN's support to send Indonesian observers to the border area to ensure a permanent ceasefire," he added.

Nhim Vanda said: "Evacuees are still afraid to return home, but I believed that they will begin to go back after Bun Rany's remarks."

Cambodia and Thailand have had border conflict just a week after Cambodia's Preah Vihear temple was awarded World Heritage Site on July 7, 2008.

The territorial dispute over a 4.6 square kms of scrub around the temple resulted in military build-up along the border and periodic clashes between Cambodian and Thai soldiers.

The latest clashes unleashed a barrage of artillery shells on both sides of the border, causing casualties on both sides, and tens of thousands of the two countries' villagers to flee home.

The informal ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Feb. 22 agreed to send Indonesian observers to monitor ceasefire between the two member states.

Source: Xinhua