SURIN: Fighting that has flared along the Thai-Cambodian border has sent hundreds of thousands of Thai villagers fleeing from their homes close to the frontier since Monday. Their once-bustling communities have fallen largely silent except for the distant rumble of firing across the fields.
Yet in several of these villages, where normally a few hundred people live, a few dozen residents have chosen to stay behind despite the constant sounds of danger.
In a village in Buriram province, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the border, Somjai Kraiprakon and roughly 20 of her neighbors gathered around a roadside house, keeping watch over nearby homes. Appointed by the local administration as Village Security Volunteers, they guarded the empty homes after many residents were forced to flee and with fewer security officials stationed nearby than usual.
The latest large-scale fighting derailed a ceasefire pushed by US President Donald Trump, which halted five days of clashes in July triggered by longstanding territorial disputes. As of Saturday, around two dozen people had been reported killed in the renewed violence.
At a house on the village’s main intersection, now a meeting point, kitchen and sleeping area, explosions were a regular backdrop, with the constant risk of stray ammunition landing nearby. Somjai rarely flinched, but when the blasts came too close, she would sprint to a makeshift bunker beside the house, built on an empty plot from large precast concrete drainage pipes reinforced with dirt, sandbags and car tires.
