The Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested yesterday that Thai authorities investigate the slaying of a Cambodian villager allegedly shot by Thai soldiers along the Oddor Meanchey province border, according to a letter addressed to the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh.
The English-language letter states that on Monday afternoon a “Thai black-uniform force unit 2,608 fired at a group of Cambodian villagers while they were allegedly cutting down trees in the border area between boundary pillars 14 and 15. One man from the group named Sim Bun Chhim was seriously wounded and died during transport to the hospital.”
“The Royal Government of Cambodia requests the authority concerned of Thailand to take appropriate measures to prevent such atrocities from happening again, conduct a thorough investigation into this unfortunate incident and bring justice to those who committed the above act of cruelty,” according to the letter.
Thai officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
In an unrelated case on Wednesday, a 24-year-old Cambodian, Or Sokal, died after he was stabbed in the neck with a broken wine bottle at a market in Thailand’s Sakaeo province, said Pol Sinuon, director of the Northwest military border commission.
A Thai man has been arrested by Thai authorities but it is not clear what started the altercation that led to the victim’s death, said Yal Bunpov, Mr Sinuon’s assistant.
Provincial Secretary-General Chhim Sivuth said Tuesday that Mr Bun Chhim’s killing marks the fourth fatal shooting of a Cambodian by Thai soldiers along Oddor Meanchey’s border with Thailand since August, when two villagers were fatally shot and another man injured by Thai soldiers. In September, a 16-year-old illegal logger was reportedly shot and burned alive by Thai security forces in black uniforms in a case that also left a second man injured. At the time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested that the Thai government investigate the killing.
