Royal Academy of Cambodia academic Sok Touch is today set to inspect the Three Stones Village, following reports that Vietnam had claimed two of the boulders which give the remote border community in Takeo province its name.

Touch, who leads the academy’s border research team, commissioned by the government to probe the accuracy of the ongoing demarcation process, said the village, named Thmor Bey Dom in Khmer and located in Borei Cholsar district’s Kampong Krasaing commune, was on the borderline, according to the constitutionally recognised colonial maps.

“I must go to see whether Thmor Bey Dom has lost [land],” Touch said, citing rumours that two of three stones were now considered Vietnamese territory.

“I am an academic; I must watch every corner. I cannot believe in just one side.”

According to Kampong Krasaing commune councillor Thy Ny Thoeun, a member of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, Cambodian villagers had been stopped from farming near the site, which he claimed had always been inside the Kingdom, though Vietnamese farmers still were allowed.