Sawt Falasteen - Thailand says over 100,000 civilians flee clashes with Cambodia

A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis later Friday.

The Thai interior ministry said more than 100,000 people from four border provinces had been moved to nearly 300 temporary shelters, while the kingdom's health ministry announced that the death toll had risen to 14 -- 13 civilians and one soldier.

In the Cambodian town of Samraong, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border, AFP journalists reported hearing distant artillery fire on Friday morning.

As the guns started up, some families packed their children and belongings into vehicles and sped away.

"I live very close to the border. We are scared because they began shooting again at about 6:00 am," Pro Bak, 41, told AFP.

He was taking his wife and children to a Buddhist temple to seek refuge.

"I don't know when we could return home," he said.

AFP journalists also saw soldiers rushing to man rocket launchers and speeding off towards the frontier.

- Calls for calm -

The fighting marks a dramatic escalation in a long-running dispute between the neighbours -- both popular destinations for millions of foreign tourists -- over their shared 800-kilometre (500-mile) frontier.

Dozens of kilometres in several areas are contested and fighting broke out between 2008 and 2011, leaving at least 28 people dead and tens of thousands displaced.

A UN court ruling in 2013 settled the matter for over a decade, but the current crisis erupted in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a new clash.

Fighting on Thursday was focused on six locations, according to the Thai army, including around two ancient temples.

Ground troops backed up by tanks battled for control of territory, while Cambodia fired rockets and shells into Thailand and the Thais scrambled F-16 jets to hit military targets across the border.

Both sides blamed each other for firing first, while Thailand accused Cambodia of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital hit by shells and a petrol station hit by at least one rocket.

Thursday's clashes came hours after Thailand expelled the Cambodian ambassador and recalled its own envoy after five members of a Thai military patrol were wounded by a landmine.

Cambodia downgraded ties to "the lowest level" on Thursday, pulling out all but one of its diplomats and expelling their Thai equivalents from Phnom Penh.

At the request of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the deadly clashes, diplomatic sources told AFP.

The United States urged an "immediate" end to the conflict, while Cambodia's former colonial ruler France made a similar call.

The EU and China -- a close ally of Phnom Penh -- said they were "deeply concerned" about the clashes, calling for dialogue.

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X.Habash--SF-PST