ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Thailand Accuses Cambodia of Stationing Troops at World Heritage Site During Border Fighting

Last week, UNESCO released a report detailing the extensive damage caused to the World Heritage Site by Thai military attacks.

A photo of the southern façade of Gopura III, a section of the Preah Vihear temple complex, taken during a UNESCO/International Council on Monuments and Sites mission to the temple in March 2026. The photo shows clear damage to the pediment and stairs.

Thailand’s government says that it has evidence that Cambodia stationed troops at Preah Vihear temple during fighting along the border last year, shortly after UNESCO released a report detailing the “profound” conflict-related damage to the temple structure.

Preah Vihear, a Cambodian temple perched on the country’s border with Thailand, has been the subject of a long-standing dispute between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. It was also a focus of clashes that broke out along the two nations’ land border in July and December 2025.

Last week, UNESCO published a report detailing the extensive damage sustained by the World Heritage-listed temple.

The 100-page report, which was assembled by specialists from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and International Council on Monuments and Sites following visits to the temple during March 1-6, observed that “every part of the monument” was targeted, leaving many of the temple’s architectural elements either “completely destroyed” or otherwise damaged by “heavy shelling” and “shrapnel impacts.”

“The mission analyzed that the strikes have wreaked havoc, leaving a profound and detrimental impact on the integrity of the property,” the report stated. “A number of architectural elements were completely destroyed by direct, heavily damaged, dislocated, and/or overturned by severe blasts.”

UNESCO said that “the surface of most walls is now disfigured by shrapnel impacts and the heavy shelling may also have weakened the cliffs, endangering their stability.” The report identified a total of 562 damaged areas on the temple complex from both the July and December clashes.

It concluded that “urgent action” was needed to protect Preah Vihear from further incidents, arguing that it was “threatened by serious and specific danger,” due to the unresolved border dispute. It finished by calling for “multilateral negotiations to obtain guarantees that no further acts of hostilities will occur” and that other measures at the site can proceed.

The UNESCO........

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