BANGKOK: Thailand accused Cambodia of violating a 10-day-old truce on Tuesday (Jan 6), saying cross-border mortar fire wounded a soldier, while Phnom Penh said a “pile of garbage” exploded, injuring two of its own troops.

A decades-old border dispute between the Southeast Asian nations erupted into military clashes several times last year, with fighting in December killing dozens of people and displacing around one million on both sides.

The two countries agreed a fragile truce on Dec 27, ending three weeks of clashes.

“Cambodia has violated the ceasefire” on Tuesday morning, the Thai army said in a statement, accusing Cambodian forces of firing mortar rounds into Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.

One soldier was wounded by shrapnel, it added.

The Thai army said in a later statement that the Cambodian side had contacted a Thai military unit and claimed “there was no intention to fire into Thai territory”, adding “the incident was caused by an operational error by Cambodian personnel”.

The Thai military said it warned Cambodian forces to exercise caution, stressing if a similar incident occurred, Thailand may need to retaliate.

Cambodia’s defence ministry spokeswoman Maly Socheata said two Cambodian soldiers were injured, one severely, on Tuesday morning in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, which sits opposite Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani.

While Cambodian forces were performing “organisation and orderliness” duties, “an explosion occurred from a pile of garbage”, she said, resulting in the two injured soldiers being hospitalised.

Socheata did not mention the strike alleged by Thailand, but said both nations’ border coordination teams had consulted on the incident involving the Cambodian soldiers and addressed the matter.

The explosion occurred in a frontier region known as the Emerald Triangle, Socheata added, where the borders of both countries and Laos meet.

In May, a Cambodian soldier was killed in a firefight with Thai troops in the area, reigniting the border conflict.