Thailand releases 18 Cambodian soldiers captured in July as part of ceasefire

Cambodian soldiers, who had been captured by Thai soldiers in July, being greeted after their release, as they walk at a checkpoint along the border with Thailand in Cambodia's Pailin province, December 31, 2025. JA DINA / AFP

Thailand on Wednesday, December 31, released 18 Cambodian soldiers held for five months as prisoners of war, days after a fresh truce between the nations ended weeks of deadly fighting along their contested frontier.

A decades-old border dispute between the Southeast Asian neighbors erupted into military clashes several times this year, with the latest round of fighting in December killing dozens of people and displacing more than a million.

Some of the 18 soldiers, with closely cropped hair, smiled, waved and gestured with their palms pressed together to cheering crowds through the windows of a bus in the border province of Pailin, video from Cambodian state television showed.

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