Cambodia displacement – Displacement camps in northwestern Cambodia remain home to tens of thousands as a fragile ceasefire with Thailand limits return and disrupts schooling.
A child’s routine can be measured in water trips and chores, but for many families along Cambodia’s Thai border, days are still defined by displacement even as a ceasefire holds.
In northwestern Cambodia’s Preah Vihear and Siem Reap provinces. 11-year-old Sokna said her days now begin with fetching water. then move to washing dishes and sweeping dust around the blue tarpaulin tent where her family lives.. The camp setting. established in the grounds of a Buddhist pagoda. has become the family’s new center of gravity since the latest fighting between Thailand and Cambodia pushed them from their home areas.
Sokna and her sister have stopped attending school. their mother Puth Reen said. explaining that the shift to the displacement camp has made normal life impossible.. Puth Reen. who returned to Cambodia after working for many years in neighbouring Thailand. said she tried to persuade her daughters to keep going to school. but the instability after the fighting began left little room for routine.. The concern now extends far beyond one household.
Across Cambodia. more than 34. 440 people remain in displacement camps. according to the country’s Ministry of Interior. with 11. 355 of them children.. For families still living in temporary shelters. life has not resumed because the ceasefire remains tense along the border. and the disruption has stretched into months rather than weeks.
Many internally displaced families say they were forced to flee areas where local troops are now stationed or where opposing Thai forces occupied territory during the conflict.. While some families have moved from emergency tents into wooden stilted houses provided by the Cambodian government. others remain reliant on aid donations. highlighting a gap between those who can transition to more stable housing and those still stuck in temporary conditions.
Even where the ceasefire reduces the immediate threat, the border’s physical reality keeps daily life suspended.. On parts of the border. including villages such as Chouk Chey and Prey Chan in Banteay Meanchey province. nationalists have drawn attention on social media to what they describe as Thai occupation of Cambodian territory.. Their anger is aimed at features used during the fighting. including large shipping containers and barbed wire that block access to villages.
Thai military-installed containers have also become a visible divider described as a kind of new frontier.. For residents close to the frontline. the militarisation does not end at the checkpoint: Cambodian forces and other authorities have also prevented some people from returning to their homes in areas that remain heavily secured.
That reality is felt directly by local farmer Sun Reth. 67. who said he cannot return to his home in the front-line area and is not allowed to sleep there.. He also said he has been prevented from picking cashew nuts from his farm to generate income. underscoring how restrictions on movement can translate into lost livelihoods even when large-scale combat has paused.
The conflict that set this displacement in motion was rooted in a long-running border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.. It erupted into two rounds of fighting last year: a five-day period in July and a later near-three-week outbreak in December.. Officials reported deaths on both sides. while civilians fled as armed forces used artillery. rockets. and. in Thailand’s case. air strikes deep into Cambodian territory.
Cambodian and Thai officials reached a ceasefire on December 27, but the atmosphere has not returned to normal.. Five months on. families describe a border that is still sensitive and unpredictable. with everyday decisions—work. return visits. and school attendance—shaped by the possibility of renewed escalation.
For children who are still in camp schooling arrangements, access to education exists but is uneven.. In the Wat Bak Kam camp in Preah Vihear province. primary school students can join classes at a local school. but high school students must travel daily about 15 km to the provincial capital.. For families living under the pressure of displacement, that distance can be a major barrier.
The cost of fuel has added another complication.. With petrol prices rising—linked in the report to wider regional conflict affecting global energy markets—teens who may have motorcycles to travel still face mounting expense.. WorldVision’s education support for the camps points to a broad effect: school dropout rates and children skipping classes have increased among students from displaced border regions.
Kinmai Phum, the technical lead for WorldVision’s education programme, described the situation as a “perfect storm” of pressures.. Displaced families have been forced to move again and again for shelters. learning spaces can lack basic facilities. and some students experience psychological trauma connected to the fighting.. He said local authorities worry that if displacement and economic hardship persist. many children may not return to school at all.
The disruption appears in families’ accounts of how war enters children’s thoughts.. Yuon Phally. a mother of two with children in their first and third years of primary school. said her son and daughter come home talking about rumours that Cambodia and Thailand might resume fighting.. She described how their attention is pulled away from lessons because their sense of safety is tied to information about their father and the frontline.
Phally said the impact was deeper during the December fighting because her children’s father is a soldier stationed in the Mom Bei area of the border.. She said she struggled to convince them to go to school while they waited to see whether he would call from the front line by mobile phone.. She also described how her own distress—tears and concern—added pressure on the children.
Her account also shows moments of emotional adjustment inside an unsettled household.. Phally said the children asked about their father’s condition and. when she was overwhelmed. they responded by telling her to eat rice. even while absorbing the tension around them.. She said their focus on studying improved after their father returned to the camp to rest and recover from sickness and injuries sustained in battle.
For some families. the war’s influence goes beyond fear and into the long process of repeatedly checking what remains at home.. Soeum Sokhem. a deputy village chief. described his own situation in a militarised “danger zone” along the border. saying he feels compelled to return every few days to check on his house. tend crops. sleep there occasionally. and monitor what neighbours are doing.
Sokhem said he cannot stay permanently in camp life because he has to go back.. When asked how he feels about the border war. he said he has lived through so many conflicts in Cambodia since the 1960s that describing his “inner feeling” is difficult.. He listed major episodes he remembers across decades. including spillover from the US war in neighbouring Vietnam. the US bombing campaign in Cambodia. the Khmer Rouge regime and the civil war that followed after Vietnam intervened to remove Pol Pot in 1979—conflicts that lasted until the mid-1990s.
He said he has also experienced sporadic border fights with Thailand in the 2000s. adding to a pattern of recurring disruption rather than a single rupture.. This history. he suggested. helps explain why the contemporary Cambodian government often speaks about peace. including through government buildings and billboards that carry the unofficial motto “Thanks for peace.”
Yet Sokhem questioned the slogan from the lived experience of someone who still hears gunfire. He said he once again hears gunfire occasionally when he returns to check his home on the front line, and that the change is stark: before, walking there was normal, but now he said he walks with fear.
Cambodia displacement camps Thailand Cambodia ceasefire border conflict school disruptions internally displaced children Wat Bak Kam camp Preah Vihear