BANGKOK: Twelve young footballers and their coach rescued from a Thai cave will be released from hospital on Thursday, a health official said, offering psychological support and urging the group to avoid media interviews despite huge interest in their against-the-odds survival story.

“All 13 Wild Boars are in good physical health ... all are in good spirits,” public health minister Piyasakol Sakolsattayatorn told reporters on Saturday. “They will be discharged altogether, initially on Thursday.”

The children — and their parents — have been advised to spend time with friends and family and not to give media interviews as that could “trigger post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms”, the minister added.

The boys appeared well in short video message recorded from their hospital ward in Chiang Rai. “I’m getting better, [I want to eat] KFC,” Adul Sam-on, 14, a stateless child born in Myanmar’s Wa state, tells the camera before turning to English to thank the world for helping rescue them.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2018