Thailand bombs Siem Reap Province, Home of Ancient Angkor Wat temple, says Cambodia
A government minister and the military said Thailand has hit areas in the same region as the world-famous Unesco heritage site.
Cambodia accused Thailand on Monday of striking deep inside its territory, bombing areas less than a two-hour drive from the country’s main tourist draw, the centuries-old Angkor temples, in a reignited border conflict.
Dozens of people were killed in five days of fighting in July before a truce was brokered and then broken within months, part of a long-standing conflict rooted in the colonial-era demarcation of the countries’ 800km (500 miles) frontier.
Cambodia’s defence ministry said in a statement that a Thai fighter jet had bombed “near a displaced civilians camp in the area of Srei Snam district, Siem Reap province”.
Information minister Neth Pheaktra said it was the first time during the renewed clashes that Thailand’s military had bombed areas of Siem Reap province, the home of the Angkor temple complex and its top tourist attraction, the Unesco heritage site Angkor Wat.
The country relies heavily on its tourism sector, which, as in many nations, is still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic years. Foreign tourist arrivals to Cambodia last year topped 6.7 million, the highest annual total on record, tourism ministry data showed.
But arrivals from July to September this year were down by about a third compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic.
Monthly ticket sales to the Angkor archaeological park were down at least 17 per cent year-on-year from June to November, according to data from operator Angkor Enterprise.
Main Image: Angkor Wat, Copyright Lucke Debucquoy