KANTHARALAK, Thailand — Thailand's government said a rocket attack from Cambodia on Sunday killed a 63-year-old villager, its first civilian death reported as a direct result of combat over the past week along the border of the two Southeast Asian nations.
Both countries confirmed that large-scale fighting, which was set off by a skirmish on Dec. 7 that wounded two Thai soldiers, continued Sunday. The two sides are battling over longstanding competing claims to patches of frontier land, some of which contain centuries-old temple ruins.
More than two dozen people on both sides of the border have officially been reported killed in the past week's fighting, while more than half a million have been displaced.
Reporters from The Associated Press arrived at the scene of Sunday's rocket impact in Sisaket province's Kantharalak District about 10 minutes after it hit. They witnessed the body of a man totally wrapped in bandages being put on a stretcher that was taken to an ambulance.
A house a couple of hundred meters (yards) away was in flames, with village volunteers attempting to put out the fire with buckets of water. A piece of shrapnel believed to be from the same rocket was embedded nearby in the road.
The victim, identified as Don Patchapan, was killed in the heart of a residential area near a school, according to a Thai Army statement. Thai Government spokesperson Siripong Angkasakulkiat condemned Cambodia for deliberately firing into civilian areas, saying that such an action was ''cruel and inhumane.''
Thailand earlier reported civilian deaths during the renewed conflict, but most of them already had underlying health issues and died during an evacuation.
Cambodia has deployed truck-mounted BM-21 rocket launchers with a range of 30-40 kilometers (19-25 miles). Each can fire up to 40 rockets at a time but cannot be precisely targeted. They have landed largely in areas from where most people have already been evacuated.
