Thai football players from cave back to school

bangkok - All twelve Thai boys who were stuck with their coach for more than two weeks in a flooded cave, have been back in school since Monday. The authorities said that the young people in the class received a warm welcome and that they started the school day with joint Buddhist prayers.

In the past nine days eleven of the twelve footballers had spent in a monastery. They did so among other things to honor a diver who died in rescuing the boys and to process what they have experienced. On Saturday they appeared in public in orange robes and shaved heads. The twelfth footballer did not go into the monastery because he is a Christian. Their coach stays in the monastery for three months.

The footballers and their coach were stuck at the end of June in the Tham Luang cave, in the northern province of Chiang Rai. Rescue workers removed the last members of the youth football team from the flooded cave on 10 July.