Border closures due to last week’s anti-Thai violence are starting to seriously affect workers along the border in both Koh Kong and Poipet, officials said Tuesday.
Six days of sealed borders meant that approximately 10,000 Cambodian workers in Koh Kong have been left jobless, with more returning over the border to their homes every day, said Koh Kong Governor Yuth Phouthang.
“At least 800 to 1,300 people return home every day,” he said.
Thai fishing boats, too, were feeling the pinch, he said, because about 90 percent of their crew are Cambodian and unable to work.
“We, both Thai and Cambodian nations, all badly need the government to reopen the border,” he said. “We two nations lose if the border remains closed.”
Prices at both major border points were starting to rise, officials said, and there is no set date for the reopening of the border.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told the Bangkok Post on Monday that the borders would remain closed “indefinitely,” and their reopening would depend on how quickly the diplomatic situation between the two countries was resolved.
The price of daily goods had increased 10 percent to 20 percent in the local markets, Yuth Phouthang said.
Poipet, too, where a large amount of cross-border trade normally takes place, has seen an increase as well, as vendors and porters sit idle.
The price of pork, eggs and chicken, especially, has increased, said Che Neang, 23, a market vendor in the border town. The price of canned products, especially soda and beer, has also increased, she said.
Poipet’s border police chief, Bun Hor, said that about 90 percent of Cambodia’s vendors have rented stalls in Thailand. Access to those stalls is sealed off.
“Thai and Cambodian market vendors are losing their clients,” Bun Hor said.
Che Neang, who sells her goods on the Thai side, said she was afraid her goods would be stolen when she returned.
“The Thai market is empty now,” she said.
The poorest Cambodians—fruit porters who earn between $1 and $2 per day—have nothing to do, she said.
Cross-border traffic that reaches as high as 2,000 people per day has been cut to zero, police in Poipet said.
