72 Containers, 5,386 People Unable to Return Home: Evidence on the Ground of Thai Military Aggression and a Fait Accompli Against Cambodia’s Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity
Aggression does not have to mean the daily detonation of weapons or the constant sound of gunfire. Even when military forces use shipping containers, barriers, barbed wire, national flags, or other structures to maintain de facto control over land and prevent civilians from returning to their homes, such actions can amount to an attempt to create a fait accompli—that is, to establish a new reality on the ground and allow the passage of time to make that reality appear normal.
But de facto control does not carry the same legal value as lawful sovereignty. Shipping containers cannot redraw an international boundary. Barbed wire cannot alter a map. And the presence of military forces cannot transform control acquired through force into lawful title over territory. Cambodia has made its position unequivocally clear: it does not recognize any boundary line altered through the use of force.
The situation in Banteay Meanchey Province has made this issue increasingly tangible. The ASEAN Observer Team (AOT) has visited the area to observe, verify, and report on conditions along the Cambodia–Thailand border, including sites where the Thai military has deployed shipping containers.
In the Chouk Chey village area, O’Bei Choan Commune, O’Chrov District, the observers inspected five locations where a total of 62 containers had been deployed. As a result, 3,951 Cambodian civilians, representing 1,045 families, including 1,155 children, have still been unable to return to their homes.
In the Prey Chan village area, the AOT inspected another five locations, where 10 containers had been deployed. There, 1,435 Cambodian civilians, representing 404 families, including 414 children, have likewise been unable to return home.
Taken together, in just these two villages, there are 72 containers across 10 locations, while 5,386 Cambodian civilians, representing 1,449 families, including 1,569 children, remain unable to return to their homes.
During the Thai military aggression in December 2025, approximately 650,000 people were displaced. To this day, around 20,000 displaced persons have still not been able to return home and continue to live in temporary shelters and displacement sites in four provinces: Banteay Meanchey, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear, and Pursat.
These figures raise an unavoidable question: when the guns have fallen silent, but thousands of homeowners are still unable to return to their homes, can that truly be called peace?
From the AOT to the United Nations: International Witnesses to the Situation on the Ground
The significance of the AOT lies in the fact that the situation is no longer confined to competing claims by either side. Locations can be identified. Containers can be counted. Barriers can be documented. And the impact on civilians can be observed.
At the same time, Tom Andrews, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, also travelled to the border area and met people displaced by the conflict.
He noted that of approximately 650,000 Cambodians displaced at the end of 2025, more than 20,000 had still been unable to return home. He also reported accounts from civilians who told him that they could not return because their villages and towns were now occupied by Thai soldiers.
More importantly, Andrews emphasized that people displaced by armed conflict have the right to return to their homes. His message was simple but powerful: they need and deserve to go home.
What is happening, therefore, cannot simply be dismissed as a war of words between Cambodia and Thailand. When both the AOT has visited the locations concerned and a United Nations Special Rapporteur has met those directly affected, the situation must be understood in its broader dimensions: a humanitarian crisis, a border issue, alleged human rights violations affecting Cambodian civilians, and a question of compliance with international law.
A Ceasefire Must Also Stop the Creation of a Fait Accompli
A ceasefire does not merely mean that the shooting stops. It must also prevent actions that worsen or alter conditions on the ground and must create the conditions necessary for civilians to return to normal life.
Therefore, when the gunfire stops, the creation of a fait accompli must stop as well. The quiet after fighting must not be used to deploy containers, erect barbed wire, build roads, or create new facts on the ground that are later invoked as the basis for territorial claims.
Shipping containers are not boundary markers. Barbed wire is not a treaty, convention, or international agreement. The presence of Thai military forces cannot place them above the law or beyond international obligations. Military power does not confer a right to act without legal constraint. The unlawful occupation of Cambodian territory cannot create sovereign title over that territory, and a fait accompli cannot replace law.
In the end, the most powerful evidence is not simply the existence of 72 containers. It is the homes to which their owners cannot return, the 1,569 children whose daily lives remain disrupted, and the 5,386 civilians in Prey Chan and Chouk Chey who are still waiting for the day they can return home.
There are also displaced civilians in other affected areas who remain unable to return to their homes, while reports indicate that some houses have been destroyed and property taken during the continued military presence and related operations. Such allegations should be documented and independently verified, but they further underline the human cost of a border crisis that has not ended merely because the shooting has stopped.
The gunfire has fallen silent, but if homeowners still cannot return home, the crisis is not over. Shipping containers are not boundary markers. Barbed wire is not a treaty. Occupation by force does not create sovereignty, and a fait accompli cannot replace the law.
Today, the question is no longer, “What happened?” The AOT has reached the locations. The UN Special Rapporteur has met displaced civilians. The situation on the ground can be observed and documented.
The questions that now demand answers are these: When will the fait accompli created through force come to an end? And when will Cambodian civilians be able to return safely and with dignity to their homes, their land, and their communities?....https://www.facebook.com/realNethPheaktra