Key Takeaways
- Over 34,440 Cambodians, including 11,355 children, remain displaced in camps after recent Thailand‑Cambodia border clashes.
- Displaced families survive on aid; many children have dropped out of school or attend irregularly due to distance, cost, and psychological stress.
- The ceasefire is fragile; militarised zones, Thai‑installed containers and barbed wire block returns to homes and farms.
- Rumours of renewed fighting distract students, while parents struggle with insecurity and economic hardship.
- Long‑term peace remains elusive for a population that has endured successive conflicts since the 1960s.
In the camps that dot Preah Vihear and Siem Reap provinces, life for displaced Cambodians has settled into a routine of survival rather than normalcy. Eleven‑year‑old Sokna, for example, begins each day fetching water, washing dishes and sweeping the area around the blue tarpaulin tent that now serves as her family’s home inside a Buddhist pagoda grounds. Like Sokna, her sister has stopped attending school because their mother, Puth Reen, says the children “don’t go” despite her encouragement. Puth Reen and her family are among the more than 34,440 people still living in displacement camps across Cambodia, a figure that includes 11,355 children, according to the Ministry of Interior.
The displacement stems from two rounds of fighting between Thailand and Cambodia last year—first a five‑day clash in July, then a nearly three‑week bout in December. Artillery, rockets and Thai air strikes forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes. Although a ceasefire was declared on December 27, the situation remains tense five months later. The border area is heavily militarised: Thai forces have placed large shipping containers and barbed wire to seal off villages once inhabited by Cambodians, creating a de facto new frontier, while Cambodian troops block residents from returning to front‑line zones. Local farmer Sun Reth, 67, describes how a Cambodian military base now sits next to her house, preventing her from sleeping there or harvesting cashew nuts for income.
Education for displaced children is fragmented. In the Wat Bak Kam camp in Preah Vihear, primary‑school pupils can attend a nearby school, but high‑school students must travel about 15 km to the provincial capital each day. The rising cost of petrol—linked to the broader regional conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran—has made that journey even harder for teenagers who rely on motorcycles. Kinmai Phum, technical lead for WorldVision’s education programme, reports a substantial increase in dropout rates and class‑skipping among border‑region students. She cites a “perfect storm” of problems: families constantly moving for shelter, schools and temporary learning spaces lacking basic facilities, and children carrying psychological trauma from the conflict. Local authorities worry that many children may never return to school if displacement and economic hardship persist.
Beyond logistical barriers, the war’s psychological toll shapes children’s focus. Yuon Phally, a mother of two primary‑schoolers, says her children return home talking about rumours that Thailand and Cambodia might resume fighting. Their anxiety is heightened because their father is a soldier stationed at the Mom Bei border area. During the December fighting, Yuon Phally could not persuade her children to go to school as they waited for a phone call from their father on the front line. She recalls tears adding pressure to the kids, who later asked about their father’s wellbeing and urged her to eat rice, sensing her distress. Only after their father came back to the camp to rest and recover did the children’s attention to school improve.
The broader population shares a deep yearning for peace, forged by decades of conflict. Soeum Sokhem, a deputy village chief whose home lies in a militarised “danger zone,” returns every few days to check on his property, tend crops and sleep briefly. He has lived through the spill‑over of the US‑Vietnam war, the US bombing campaign, the Khmer Rouge genocide, the civil war that followed Vietnam’s 1979 intervention, and sporadic border skirmishes with Thailand in the 2000s. When asked about his feelings, he admits he cannot fully articulate his inner longing for peace, noting that walking back to his home now fills him with fear because of occasional gunfire. His sentiment echoes a common refrain in Cambodia: government buildings and billboards proclaim an unofficial motto, “Thanks for peace,” yet many, like Soeum Sokhem, ask, “Who doesn’t want to have peace?”
For now, the displaced live in a limbo of aid‑dependent shelter, interrupted education, and lingering insecurity. While some families transition from emergency tents to government‑provided wooden stilt houses, the threat of renewed clashes keeps many from returning to their farms and homes. The path to lasting stability will require not only a durable ceasefire but also concerted efforts to rebuild livelihoods, restore access to education, and heal the trauma that continues to shape the daily lives of Cambodia’s border communities.