SAMROANG, Cambodia — In a makeshift refugee camp in the northwestern Cambodian province of Oddar Meanchey, a father and his extended family are now counting the costs of a five-day border conflict with Thailand that ended in an uneasy ceasefire on Monday (July 28).
Yen Luot, 59, together with his four children and their spouses, abandoned their jobs in Thailand and headed back to their Cambodian homeland last week amid fears that vicious border fighting between the two countries would spill over into violence against Cambodian citizens.
"They all worked in Thailand before the fighting broke out," he said from a campsite consisting of several rows of tents hitched up in a field. "I asked them that we all go back home because of the fighting between the two countries to avoid an attack on us there (in Thailand)."
He said he saw social media videos depicting attacks on Cambodian citizens by Thai nationalists and feared that the situation could escalate.
Luot, who spent 15 years as a construction worker in Thailand, said he is now worried about his family's prospects, since they now have no jobs or homes, and still owe money to the bank.
"If the situation improves, they could return to work in Thailand or find jobs in Phnom Penh," he said. "But right now, we don't even have the money to travel to Phnom Penh to look for work."
Luot and his family were among thousands of Cambodian migrant workers to return home from Thailand as a result of the fighting.
Before the conflict began, over 520,000 Cambodians worked in Thailand, accounting for 12 per cent of the country's foreign workforce, according to official data.
A decades-long border dispute between the two southeast Asian neighbours had been escalating since late May and boiled over into a military conflict on July 24, with both sides blaming the other for starting the fighting.
A ceasefire was reached on Monday, effective from midnight, following talks in Malaysia.
Luot's daughter Chharn Sarou, who worked in a Thai factory before fleeing across the border last week, said her manager wanted her to stay in Thailand but she was afraid the hostilities between the two countries could have put her in danger.
She said she didn't know what she would do next.
"If I had the opportunity to find work in the country (Cambodia), I would stay, rather than returning to Thailand."
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