Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Georg Matthes
00:19 Namkuen Paikuen | Vendor
01:12 Nai Krongjai | Worker
01:40 Suthian Piwchan | Thailand Science Research and Innovation
02:18 Namkuen Paikuen | Vendor

Script:

This was one of the few remaining active border crossings between northeastern Thailand and Cambodia — until Cambodia shut it dow.

Thai fuel trucks were forced to turn back, Cambodian visitors were left stranded and fruit stalls now sit deserted.

+++ Namkuen Paikuen, Merchant
“I have a lot of expenses. I usually make around 90 euros a day, but now I barely make 10.
If this keeps going, we’ll have to shut down.”

Ever since the dispute over contested border areas flared up, a sense of fear has returned here — and not just over lost income.

PTC Georg: To get a sense of just how seriously people here take this border dispute, look at these bunkers. Schools along the Cambodian border are equipped with structures and shelters like this — a reminder that the shadow of conflict still looms.

This Thai school is even building more shelters now. Workers here still remember 2011 — the last major escalation — when a Cambodian grenade hit a nearby village.

+++ Nai Krongjai, Worker, Si Sa Ket
“They’re on higher ground, so they’ve got the advantage. They just aim their guns and shoot.”

Many villages are now doing the same: building bunkers. The two countries share an 817 kilometre border, largely drawn by French colonial powers over a century ago. That legacy left patches of unmarked territory — land both sides claim.

+++ Suthian Piwchan, Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI)
“The prime minister is too soft on this. I’m not saying we should go to war — but we need stronger leadership. She needs to stand her ground.”

Suthian Piwchan has spent years mapping this border,  but while he thinks Prime Minister Paetongtarn was too conciliatory towards Cambodia in the recent phone call, he also believes only a grassroots solution — involving the people who live on both sides of the border — will work. 

The Cambodian fruit vendor I met earlier agrees. She is married to a Thai.

+++ SOTNamkuen Paikuen, Merchant:
“I just want them to talk. Not to fight. Not to go to war. I want them to clear things up once and for all — because in the end, it’s us, the people, who suffer.”

But the tit-for-tat moves aren’t stopping.
Shortly after the Cambodian border closure, Thailand’s military announced it was closing the Si Sa Ket border crossing — in direct retaliation.