Many people are thankful for the ceasefire that helped to stop further deaths, injuries, and property damage, and also for being able to prepare for the upcoming Pchum Ben festival. But for the families of 18 soldiers captured by the Thai military, every day has been a struggle, as they wait for them to return home.
In the south of Kampong Pranak Market in Preah Vihear, there is a wooden house with red tiles where a woman in her 50s woke up early every morning to exercise, starting off her day in a positive mood.
However, this routine has changed ever since the soldiers were taken. Instead, she spends every waking moment reading social media news on her phone, hoping to get any details or updates about the soldiers’ well-being or their release.
She is Kin Sok Khim, wife of captain Bun Tha who was among those captured on the morning of July 29, just hours after the ceasefire was implemented.
After receiving news of his arrest and seeing the pictures of them in a trench posted on social media, she and her children broke down in tears and prayed for his release.
“At the time, all I could do was sit and cry, and look at my phone to see if there was any news. My children, siblings, and relatives came to ask after him. They all know him well.”
Sok Khim said she is worried about her husband and the other soldiers, and does not know what the Thai military intends to do with them.
“I wonder what plans they have. I am thinking so much. What good have they done for us [soldiers]. I keep wondering when my husband will come back or what he is doing,” she said.
Her children often take the phone away from her because she spends too many hours looking at it to find out when the soldiers will be released.
“I watch the news every day because I want to know when they will be released. That’s all I do daily. I spend so much time on the phone. My children take it away from me, although I just want to see if there is any good news, when our forces will be released, today or tomorrow, I just want to know.”
However, she hopes that the Cambodian government will negotiate with the Thai government to get them back as soon as possible.
She lost contact with her husband from the first day of the Cambodia and Thailand clashes on July 24, and at 10 a.m on July 29, she received news that the Thai army had arrested her husband despite the ceasefire.
In late August, she said, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team visited her and told her not to worry a lot, claiming that her husband was doing well.
At the time, they asked her to write a letter to her husband and not to let anyone see it. They would deliver the letter to her husband when they visited the soldiers again.
Only recently she “recovered” from the state that she was in and was able to give an interview to the press after the ICRC visited the soldiers for the second time on September 5 and took a photo together.
The Cambodian Red Cross said they have passed the soldiers’ messages to their families in six provinces on September 11 and 12. The messages were in response to the letters handed to them by ICRC when they visited them.
Sok Khim was told by the team that they would try to arrange for his release as soon as possible or at least to meet his family in person, or in any possible way.
“The main thing is I want to know how he is. Is he alive, is he sleeping well, and in good health?” she said, adding that the Thai military must release them. “It is very wrong to arrest them after the ceasefire.”
She and her husband live in Chhep district, 20 kilometers from the Thai border. She used to sell snacks from her home.
On June 16, she decided to move to Preah Vihear city to live with her children after her husband was assigned to the frontline following the initial clash on May 28.
“I don’t want to go anywhere. First, the place where I work [and live] has been evacuated. Second, my husband was arrested. I don’t feel like earning any money.”
Sok Khim and her husband, Bun Tha, have been married for nearly 30 years and have four children. Bun Tha, who joined the army at the age of 18, was from Kampong Thom province and moved to Preah Vihear province while serving in the army.
Three of their children are still in school. Their eldest son is on a vocational course in Siem Reap, while their third child, a girl, is in third year of university, and their youngest daughter is in fourth grade in Preah Vihear city. Their second daughter has a family of her own.
These days, Sok Khim draws her “strength” from her children.
“I used to exercise by walking half an hour in the morning, sometimes an hour, but I haven’t exercised for more than a month.
“Now my health is deteriorating. I used to weigh more than 90 kilograms, but I have lost more than 10 kilograms. My clothes are loose. I sleep less and only watch the news.”
Bun Tha’s daughter, Chhoy Thyda, 23, said that she misses her father every day. The family no longer feels like continuing their business or doing “anything else”, instead focusing only on waiting for news about him.
“I miss him; it’s been [more than] a month, and there is no news yet; a solution for when he will be released. I hope it’s quick because it’s been a really long time for the family.”
Han Bunthean, 35, the wife of Ang Oeung, a Cambodian soldier who was also arrested by Thailand, said every day, relatives and villagers come to visit and comfort her. Like Sok Khim, Bunthean also waits for news from her husband endlessly.
They have been married for about 20 years, and have three children, studying between grades two and 12.
“There is nowhere to go. I stay at home, waiting for my husband to come home. Sometimes I look at my phone […] sometimes my neighbors come to visit me, so that I don’t think too much.”
Her family is involved in farming, she said, remembering the time she used to do farming with her husband. “We are farmers, and owe money to the bank. I can’t sleep, and miss my husband. I cry often thinking about the time we worked on the farm together.”
The Thai army captured the Cambodian soldiers on the morning of July 29, 2025. Chan Sopheakta, commander of the Preah Vihear Military Operations Area, said the Thai army allegedly tricked the soldiers who were in the trench on Bosbov battlefield, asking them to take a photo with a group of Thai soldiers after a ceasefire.
Suddenly, another group of Thai soldiers came out of the forest and put their guns behind them, he said.
Quoting the Thai army, Reuters wrote that the Cambodian soldiers “surrendered”. On September 5, Thai media The Nation reported that the ICRC visited the soldiers, who were called “prisoners of war” by the Thai army.
The ICRC expressed readiness to act as a neutral intermediary and witness the handover process, should both parties reach an agreement on their release. The Royal Thai Army said it facilitated a second transparent visit by the ICRC in line with international practices and standards.
The Cambodia Human Rights Committee (CHRC) on September 6 sent a letter to Dr. Ganna Yudkivska, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, to appeal to the plight of soldiers.
CHRC said the continued detention, despite the entry into force of the ceasefire agreement between the two countries, has no legal basis. “It undermines the ceasefire agreement and contravenes international legal obligations, including Article 9 of the International Covenant of the Civil and Political Rights and Article 118 of the Third Geneva (1949), which request the release and repatriation of detained military personnel without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.”
