(SISAKET and SURIN PROVINCES, July 29, 2025)—The U.N. should establish an independent Fact-Finding Mission to investigate the conduct of Thai and Cambodian armed forces in the border conflict between the two nations, Fortify Rights said today. On July 24, 2025, the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces launched multiple rocket and artillery attacks, including large volleys of powerful unguided “Grad” rockets, into four Thai provinces bordering Cambodia in what appears to be an indiscriminate attack on civilians.

“The use of unguided Grad rockets against civilian-populated areas is by its very nature indiscriminate, and may amount to war crimes,” said Peter Bouckaert, Senior Director at Fortify Rights. “Grad rockets are notoriously imprecise in their targeting, and should never be used in civilian-populated areas—one volley of Grad missiles has the potential to wipe out an entire village.”

Attacks launched by both sides have reportedly killed at least 23 civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands in both Thailand and Cambodia.

The July 24 attacks, which reportedly killed 13 and injured 46 Thai civilians, come amidst weeks of simmering tensions and sporadic skirmishes along contested stretches of the approximately 800-kilometer border between the two countries. According to the Royal Thai Armed Forces, Cambodian Armed Forces rockets and artillery hit at least eight locations in Surin, Sisaket, Ubon Rachathani, and Buriram Provinces.

On July 28, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who currently holds ASEAN’s rotating presidency, convened a meeting between Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thailand’s acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Following the meeting, Prime Minister Ibrahim announced that both parties had agreed to “an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, with effect from 24:00 hours (local time) on 28 July 2025.” According to official sources, at the time of writing, several violations of the ceasefire have already occurred.

Fortify Rights spoke to ten survivors, eyewitnesses, and first responders to Cambodian missile attacks in Surin and Sisaket Provinces, Thailand. On July 28, 2025, Fortify Rights received permission from Kantharalak Provincial Police Station to access and visit one of the sites of the Cambodian rocket and artillery attacks, which remains under restricted access in Baan Namyen, Kantharalak District. Fortify Rights also collected and analyzed video and photographic evidence detailing the attacks on July 24, 2025.

Fortify Rights researchers do not currently have access to the Cambodian border area, so are not able to evaluate the legality of the attacks carried out by the Thai military on Cambodian targets.

At approximately 10:30 a.m. on July 24, at least two rockets hit a 7-Eleven convenience store located within a Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) gas station complex as known as PTT Baan Namyen in Moo 5, Mueang Sub-District, Kantharalak District, Sisaket Province, Thailand—approximately 30 kilometers from the country’s border with Cambodia. One of the rockets failed to explode. Fortify Rights also visited the surrounding area and confirmed that at least nine rockets had hit different sites, including vacant land, a local road, rice fields, a rubber plantation, and a small neighborhood shop on the same day.

The village head of Moo 5, Mueang Sub-District, Kantharalak District, Sisaket Province, who was a first responder to the Cambodian rocket attack, told Fortify Rights:

The rockets landed at the gas station on July 24, [2025], at around 10:30 a.m. At that time, I was in front of Wat Baan Namyen [Baan Namyen Temple], which is about 600 meters from the gas station where the incident occurred … when I suddenly heard a very loud explosion echoing across the sky. I didn’t know exactly where the rockets had landed because there were multiple rounds fired … [and then] some villagers…shouted at me, saying that [Cambodian forces] had fired rockets, and they had landed at the PTT gas station [in] Baan Namyen … I got closer and I could already see flames engulfing the area … Some people were helping pull out the injured and dead from the scene. It was indescribable, the injuries were so severe, and everyone was covered in blood. The fire was very intense.

He continued:

When I went to look, I saw three or four bodies outside the gas station. I didn’t dare go any further in, so I stepped back. I can’t even describe how I felt. I saw the charred body of a mother holding her child in the convenience store. … Another one [Cambodian rocket] hit a local shop around 2 p.m., so the timing was different. If I hadn’t made that early announcement [to evacuate the area] and if the first rocket hadn’t hit the gas station first but landed simultaneously at both locations, the casualties would have been much worse … I’ve been the village headman here for 13 years. … This time, the situation is worse than ever before.

A 57-second video, widely shared on social media, shows the aftermath of the 7-Eleven attack. The video is seemingly taken by a woman sitting inside a vehicle parked in the forecourt in front of the convenience store. The footage pans around, showing the main road running adjacent to the 7-Eleven and then focusing on the store itself. The front of the store has smashed windows, and signage is falling from the shopfront. Thick grey smoke can be seen rising from the roof as a woman’s voice can be heard to scream, “What about that person?” in Thai, seemingly referring to a man lying lifeless in the flatbed of a pick-up truck parked directly in front of the store. A woman can be seen sitting on the floor in the background, her face covered in white masonry dust, with blood around her nose and mouth. Two men and a teenage boy run to the man in the pickup truck and try to revive him. As they lift the man, the woman in the background slumps backward as if having fainted. One of the men goes to check the woman while the other man and the teenage boy lift the limp body from the pick-up truck and carry him to the back of the car, where the video is being filmed from.

An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photograph reportedly taken on July 24 in Preah Vihaer Province, Cambodia, shows Cambodian troops loading long cylinder rockets into a truck-mounted “Grad” Multiple Rocket Launcher System (MRLS). Another AFP photo shows the same rockets lying on top of crates displaying writing in English stating that the contents were 122 millimeter “SHE-40” artillery rockets. SHE-40 122mm rockets are unguided rockets manufactured by North Industries Corporation, China.

Grad (meaning “hail” in Russian) MLRS launchers can fire up to forty rockets in a volley that lasts 18-20 seconds and at a maximum range of 50 kilometers—saturating a wide area with rockets, effectively denying an enemy with the ability to occupy the targeted territory.

Grad rockets are unguided and notoriously imprecise, with each rocket having a potential landing area of more than 50,000 square meters, an area larger than seven football fields. Each rocket contains 6.4 kilograms of explosives that create thousands of metal fragments, killing and maiming people for a radius of more that 20 meters. Multiple videos obtained by Fortify Rights show Cambodian troops with Chinese and Soviet-produced Grad missile launchers heading towards the Thai border, and firing full volleys of Grad missiles towards Thailand, as well as videos of the volleys of Grad missiles heading towards their target in the air.

Fortify Rights also spoke to Thai villagers displaced by Cambodian attacks. Somjit, 52, a rubber plantation farmer from Buachet District, Surin Province, described coming under fire on July 23:

Around 11 a.m., not long after the gunfire began, I started to hear it growing louder and more frequent. It wasn’t just one single boom and then silence—it was continuous. “Boom, boom, boom, boom.” More than ten explosions. Then there would be silence for a while, before it started again.

Comparing her experience this time to previous border skirmishes, Somjit said: “Usually when they fire at each other, it stays around the border area. There was never shelling in town before—nothing like this has ever happened.”

Jit Aree, a 39-year-old rubber farmer in Sangkha District, Surin Province, told Fortify Rights about her experience of the conflict. She said:

They announced that we should prepare to evacuate because of the gunfire … At first, I didn’t evacuate right away because I am on the rubber committee, and I had to stay to purchase rubber scrap from the villagers. I was scared, but it was my duty. I was also worried about my parents, who are elderly. My father is bedridden.

Reflecting on the impact of the ongoing conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, Jit Aree told Fortify Rights, “Everyone here is distressed. … People don’t raise their children only to have them die like this.”

International humanitarian law—also known as the laws of war—governs the conduct of parties to international armed conflicts, such as the ongoing conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. International humanitarian law obliges all parties to armed conflicts to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects (such as homes, schools, and hospitals) and military targets. The laws of war expressly prohibit both direct attacks and indiscriminate attacks that target civilians and civilian objects.

Article 51(4) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which Cambodia is a state party to, defines indiscriminate attacks as:

(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to which Cambodia is also a state party, gives the Court jurisdiction over war crimes committed by a national, or on the territory, of a state party to the Rome Statute.

Cambodian rocket and artillery attacks directed toward Thailand on July 24, 2025, seem to have failed to distinguish between military targets and civilians and civilian objects, and can therefore be considered indiscriminate attacks contrary to international humanitarian law, Fortify Rights said today.

“A U.N. Fact-Finding Mission can be created by various organs of the U.N., including the Human Rights Council, and would help to independently establish the facts regarding potential war crimes in this conflict,” said Peter Bouckaert. “Establishing the facts is the first step toward accountability, and it is only through accountability that we can ensure justice for victims and survivors, and stronger compliance with international law in the future.”

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