Video shows Thai-Cambodian border temple argument, not incursion into Bangladesh
- Published on October 21, 2025 at 10:13
- 3 min read
- By Rasheek MUJIB, AFP Bangladesh
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Days after three people were killed in violent protests in Bangladesh's Khagrachari district, a video of soldiers in military fatigues circulated in posts falsely claiming it showed an ethnic armed group from neighbouring Myanmar entering the country. The clip in fact shows an argument between soldiers from Cambodia and Thailand at a disputed border temple, which occurred more than two months before the protests in Bangladesh's southeast border region.
"Arakan Army, which entered Bangladesh to capture Burmese citizens, attacked Bengali families and confronted the Bangladesh Army," reads the Bengali-language caption of a Facebook video shared on October 4, 2025.
The Arakan Army is an ethnic armed group that operates in western Myanmar, a region that borders Bangladesh.
The 14-second video, which has been viewed more than 6,000 times, shows a group of men dressed in army fatigues in a wooded area.
Its caption also includes the hashtag "Bandarban Border", referring to southeastern Bangladesh's Bandarban district which shares a border with Myanmar (archived link).
The clip also circulated elsewhere on Facebook after violent clashes in nearby Khagrachari district on September 28 left three people dead, prompting authorities to impose a law banning "unlawful assembly" for eight days until October 5 (archived link).
The clashes erupted when security forces stopped protesters angry at the recent alleged rape of a schoolgirl.
The region has long been a flashpoint between Indigenous communities and Bengali-speakers, with clashes breaking out over land and resources.
The clip circulating online, however, was filmed more than two months before the recent clashes and there have been no official reports of an incursion by an ethnic armed group into Bangladesh.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared clip led to similar images embedded in a report published by Thai media outlet The Nation on July 15 (archived link).
According to the report, the images show Thai and Cambodian soldiers confronting one another near to a contested Khmer temple in a sensitive border area on July 15.
Relations between the Southeast Asian nations had been tense since May, when their long-standing territorial dispute over contested border temples on their 800-kilometre (500-mile) frontier boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier.
Violence would erupt again in late July before a truce brought an end to 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 mid-July dispute at Prasat Ta Muen Thom -- or Prasat Ta Moan Thom in Khmer -- was also covered by multiple Thai and Cambodian media, with the reports sharing footage filmed from different angles (archived here, here and here).
The reports said both sides later agreed to restore the situation to normal and reduce further confrontations.
The uniforms worn by the soldiers in the falsely shared video also match those shown in an AFP photo taken at the temple on March 26.
Moreover, an AFP reporter confirmed the people heard speaking in the falsely shared video are speaking in Khmer.
AFP has previously debunked misinformation about the unrest in Bangladesh's southeast border region.
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