The Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh has requested its government to investigate the alleged killing of a Cambodian youth on the border last week, an embassy official said Friday.
Cambodian officials have said a 16-year-old boy was first shot and then burned alive by Thai soldiers after he was arrested for illegally crossing the border, a claim Thai authorities deny.
Suwat Saew Sook, an adviser to the ambassador in Phnom Penh, said the embassy had received the request from the Foreign Ministry and forwarded it to the Thai government.
The Thai government and its soldiers are committed to “non-violence,” he said. “We never commit violence or cruelty to the Cambodian people.”
The Foreign Ministry claims Yon Rith, 16, was shot and later killed after illegally felling trees in Thailand. Several other boys managed to escape, the ministry said in a letter.