As Thailand and Cambodia fight head-on, desperate evacuees have reported being surrounded by thunderous artillery bombardments.
More than 100, 000 people were forced to leave their homes across four Thai border provinces on Friday as a result of the worst fighting in more than a decade between the neighboring nations.
Thousands of people from northeastern Surin province renounced their homes for makeshift shelters built in the town center on Thursday as a result of artillery fire.
Nearly 3, 000 people packed onto rows of plastic mats covered in colorful blankets and hastily gathered things in Surindra Rajabhat University’s sports hall.
Thidarat Homhuan, 37, told the AFP news agency, “I’m concerned about our home, our animals, and the crops we’ve worked so hard on.”
She eluded nine members of her family, including her grandmother, who had just come out of a hospital, who was 87.
“That concern persists,” he said. However, because we are now further away from the danger zone, being here makes it feel safer. We’re at least safe, she said.
When she first heard what she described as “something like machinegun fire,” followed by heavy artillery thuds, Thidarat was babysitting at a nearby school.
“There was chaos,” he said. The children feared for their lives. She said, “I rushed to the bunker at the school.”
Evacuees slept next to each other in the shelter beneath the gym’s high ceiling, surrounded by loud electric fans and hushed rumors.
Children played quietly in the shade of blankets, while infants slept in cradles, and the elderly were lying in blankets. In mesh crates close to the public restroom, pet cats sat nearby.
According to Chai Samoraphum, the president’s office director, this is the first full year the university has been operating as a shelter.
The campus quickly changed into a functioning evacuation center after classes were immediately canceled.
Six locations on the campus were used to distribute evacuees from four border districts.
The majority of them departed quickly. Some people have chronic illnesses but didn’t bring their medications, while others only managed to grab a few things, Chai told AFP.
Chai explained that the center offers mental health services to trauma victims and care for those who have chronic illnesses with the provincial hospital’s assistance.
According to reports from Thailand’s officials, at least 14 people have been killed in border fighting, including one soldier and two civilians who were killed in a rocket attack close to a petrol station in Sisaket province. It is confirmed that there was also a Cambodian fatality.
Evacuees are unsure of their ability to return home as fighting continues near the border.
The shelter offers safety and a place to wait for confirmations that it’s safe to “go back to normal life,” according to Thidarat.
She already wants the government to take swift action, saying, “Do not wait until lives are lost.
She said, “We rely on the government very much for protection, and we look up to it.”
Source: Aljazeera
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