KUALA LUMPUR: Cambodia has sought the help of Asean and the International Committee of the Red Cross to facilitate the release of 18 of its soldiers held by Thai authorities since last month.
“I am appealing to Malaysia, as Asean chair, and to the ICRC to bring our soldiers home immediately,” Senior Minister Ly Thuch told the New Straits Times.
The call comes in the wake of recent clashes along a disputed jungle frontier and just days after a landmine blast injured a Thai soldier, testing a fragile ceasefire deal brokered in Kuala Lumpur last month.
Ly Thuch, who is on an official visit to Kuala Lumpur, said the “unarmed” soldiers were captured on July 29 and are aged between 20 and 40.
“We hope the ICRC can visit the soldiers as we are concerned about their health.”
Fighting erupted on the Thailand-Cambodia border on July 23 after months of tension, reigniting a long-running dispute.
Five days of artillery exchanges and airstrikes left dozens dead and forced more than 172,000 people to flee in Cambodia.
Ly Thuch, who is also chairman of the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, added that the families of the captured soldiers were worried.
He said that the wife of one soldier was “crying continuously”.
“When I met her, she looked into my eyes and said: ‘Please bring back my husband’,” he said.
Ly Thuch, 59, said Cambodia was not holding any Thai prisoners of war.
The border dispute stretches back decades, rooted in colonial-era maps that left pockets of contested land, most notably near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple.
Skirmishes between 2008 and 2011 claimed lives on both sides and displaced hundreds of villagers.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
