I panicked' Evacuees take shelter away from border

For almost two months, Maneerat Kote-Bandit had felt on edge, nervous that the tensions simmering on the Thai-Cambodian border might escalate. Everyone in her village, close to the disputed border, had been told to prepare emergency bags in case fighting erupted. "We kept following the news and kept staying alert and asking, is this the day?"

- Rebecca Ratcliffe

Still, when the boom of heavy artillery and gun fire echoed through her village on Thursday morning, she was shaken with panic. It was between 8am and 9am when the blasts started. Shortly after, a message was played on a loudspeaker across the village, urging residents to get ready to flee. Maneerat's nephews, eight and nine, were sent home from school, and the family piled into the back of her pick-up truck. "We were shocked, scared but we had to get ourselves together," says Maneerat.

The family is now staying near a municipality centre, where at least a hundred people sleep on bamboo mats under a metal structure.

They are among more than 130,000 people who have been evacuated from their homes in border areas of Thailand, after the deadliest fighting in a decade erupted between Thailand and Cambodia on Thursday.