By Chantha Lach
OU CHROV DISTRICT, Cambodia, Dec 14 (Reuters) – At nine months pregnant, 27-year-old Suang Sreang fears she will have to give birth in a rudimentary displacement camp after fleeing fighting between Cambodian and Thai troops along their disputed border.
The Cambodian national is among tens of thousands of civilians on both sides who have fled their homes since clashes erupted on Monday in the most intense fighting since a five-day clash in July.
“When the fighting started I put my difficulties aside and took my children and ran away fast,” said the mother-of-three from Ou Beichoan commune, which borders Thailand’s Sakeo province.
“My priority was to save myself, my children’s lives. I can think of getting other things later,” she said, adding that she had left all the things she had to prepare for the new baby at home.
Cambodia and Thailand have exchanged heavy-weapons fire at multiple points along their 817 kilometre (508 mile) border. Hostilities spread over the weekend to the coast, with Thai Prime Minister Charnvirakul vowing to keep fighting “until we feel no more harm and threats to our land and people”.
Cambodia has set up more than 100 evacuation centres across six provinces, housing around 130,000 people, but the scale and speed of the displacement has created shortages of food, shelter, drinking water and sanitation facilities, said Janes Imanuel Ginting, national director of aid group World Vision.
Donations including food were coming from local private companies and charities, said Mean Chanyada, the governor of Oddar Meanchey province where some of the camps are located.
“We have each other in the difficult situation,” he said. “And hope one day the problem will be resolved. We need peace.”
From the hot, crowded camp where she and her family are sheltering under tarpaulin, Suang Sreang said she could hear the sound of fighting when she closed her eyes.
“Everyone keeps running to different places so I really don’t know where to go to deliver this baby,” she said.
“I fear that I may have to deliver the baby here in the tent.”
(Reporting by Chantha Lach and Thomas Suen; Writing by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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