Video shows hornbills in southern Thailand, not 'vultures feeding on soldiers' bodies'

Published on August 12, 2025 at 05:03
3 min read
By Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, AFP Thailand

Following deadly border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, a video was shared in posts falsely claiming it shows vultures gathering in large numbers to feed on the unrecovered bodies of Thai soldiers. The clip was shared days before the latest violence, and in fact shows hornbills in southern Thailand, hundreds of kilometres from the Thai-Cambodian border.

"Many vultures and crows are tearing at the corpses of (Thai) soldiers," reads part of the Khmer-language caption of a Facebook video shared on August 5, 2025.

"Please, Thai soldiers, come and take the bodies away. Stop harming your own people. They have families to look after!"

The video, which has been viewed over a million times, shows birds densely perched on a tree.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on August 9, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The same footage was also shared in similar Khmer-language posts on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.

It emerged after Thailand and Cambodia agreed a truce that came into effect on July 29, following five days of clashes that killed at least 43 people on both sides and drove more than 300,000 from their homes (archived link).

The clashes -- the latest eruption of a long-standing border dispute -- also kicked off a disinformation blitz as Thai and Cambodian partisans sought to boost the narrative that the other was to blame (archived link).

Following the truce, Thailand's deputy defence minister Nattapon Narkphanit called on Cambodia to retrieve the bodies of its fallen troops at the border and Cambodian social media users also claimed the corpses of Thai soldiers had been left at the frontier (archived here and here).

The circulating video, however, predates the latest border clashes and does not show "vultures and crows".

Flock of hornbills

A reverse image search using the keyframes from the falsely shared video led to a higher-quality version posted by Thai photographer Somchai Choosiri on Facebook on July 21 (archived link).

Its caption reads: "A large group of plain-pouched hornbills flock and sleep closely together."

The video was labelled as having been filmed in Phatthalung, a province in the south of Thailand -- hundreds of kilometres from the Thai-Cambodian border.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and Somchai Chusiri's Facebook video (right)

A watermark -- reading "Somchai Choosiri" and "Photographer" -- is also visible at the bottom of both the falsely shared clip and the original video.

Screenshot of the video, with Somchai Choosiri's watermark highlighted by AFP

The sight of migrating plain-pouched hornbills was also covered by local news reports and wildlife authorities (archived here and here).

According to their entry in a database run by conservation alliance Birdlife International, plain-pouched hornbills have a varied diet, mainly comprising fruit but also invertebrates and small vertebrates (archived link).

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.

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