[1] Tired of war and starved by famine after three years of rule by the Khmer Rouge, many Cambodians of the northwest wanted to avoid forced conscription or retaliation by seeking asylum in neighboring Thailand.

The Dega people who had been leading the Montagnard resistance against the Hanoi Communist regime also used the opportunity in hope of reaching out to the West, but many were caught by the Khmer Rouge soldiers under Son Sen who forced them to fight back against the Vietnamese as their "common enemy".

[7] While those who retreated were shot down by Thai soldiers, most died from dehydration, diarrhoea, and mines which had been placed in the area both by the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese invading army.

[8] Thai Foreign Minister Uppadis Pachariyangkun was accused of using this humanitarian crisis to obtain a political victory by forcing the Vietnamese to retreat, which the latter refused to discuss.

[14] Because tens of thousands of Khmers had been forced by famine to find refuge in Thailand, the violent response by the Thai authorities left a mark on the modern conscience.

Without going back to the battle of Siemreap and the fall of Angkor in 1432, it appears that the long-running border dispute between Cambodian and Thailand fuelled the deportation of thousands of refugees to Dangrek.

While the Thai authorities claimed that it was the safest point to drop the Khmer refugees at, it may well have been symbolic retaliation after the International Court of Justice's 1964 decision which awarded the control of the Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia.

[16] In the aftermath of war, it has taken decades to take out the landmines left behind by the Khmer Rouge, Thai and Vietnamese soldiers in the Dangrek mountain range, and more generally across Cambodia.