Video from Myanmar conflict falsely shared as Thailand-Cambodia dispute

Published on August 6, 2025 at 03:44
3 min read
By AFP Indonesia, AFP Thailand

As Thailand and Cambodia battled with jets, rockets and artillery after longstanding border tensions erupted in July, a video showing a truckload of men engaging in a gunfight surfaced in social media posts linking it to the recent conflict. However, the footage was in fact shared days before by an anti-coup group in Myanmar and published in reports about the group attacking junta soldiers.

Warning: video contains gun violence

"#Horrifying Cambodia vs Thailand war," reads an Indonesian-language Facebook post on July 26.

The accompanying video of a truckload of men shooting at several people on a street has been viewed more than 139,000 times.

Screenshot of false post, taken on July 31, 2025, with a red X mark added by AFP

It was shared after a long-standing dispute over contested border temples boiled over into open combat on Thailand and Cambodia's 800-kilometre (500-mile) frontier on July 24.

After five days of fighting that killed at least 43 people on both sides, both sides agreed to a ceasefire starting from July 29 (archived link).

The video also surfaced alongside similar claims on X and Instagram, as well as in Malay-language posts.

However, the footage is unrelated to the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.

Two of the people in the truck can be seen wearing hats with an emblem that features a red flag with a white star on the top-left corner, matching the flag of Myanmar's anti-coup People's Defence Force (PDF) (archived link).

Screenshot from falsely shared video post, with PDF emblem marked by AFP

A Burmese-speaking AFP journalist confirmed that the people in the video speak Burmese throughout, while several storefronts have banners written in Burmese.

Keyword searches based on the two logos seen in the top corners of the video, which are linked to two groups under the PDF, led to a Facebook post by the DU WON People's Defense group Ye.U on July 15 sharing the same footage (archived link).

The group posted a similar video the day before, with a Burmese-language caption saying anti-junta fighters attacked five soldiers from a military station in Zigon as they returned from buying alcohol on July 14, 2025 (archived link). The post adds that four of the troops were killed in the battle.

The same men wearing the same clothing can be seen in both videos.

Screenshot comparisons of the two videos posted by the DU WON People's Defence Force on Facebook, with similarities marked by AFP

AFP was able to confirm the videos were shot in the town using the name of a gold shop seen in the July 14 video, which corresponds to a photo of the shop's exterior posted to its Facebook page in January 2021 (archived here and here).

Screenshot comparison of the July 14 Du Won People's Defence Force video (left) and the photo of the gold shop in Zigon (right)

Screenshots from the video were also used in a July 15 news report about the attack by local outlet Democratic Voice of Burma (archived link).

AFP has also debunked other misinformation related to the Thailand and Cambodia border clash here, here and here.

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