Pictorial flashback: When Vietnam freed Cambodia from a genocidal regime

A squad of Vietnamese soldiers patrol the streets of Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, general secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, Cambodia's former ruling party, invaded Vietnam and killed tens of thousands of Vietnamese from 1975 to 1979 as part of their genocidal agenda. Upon request by Cambodian revolutionaries, Vietnamese soldiers marched into Phnom Penh in January 1979 during the counter-offensive on the southwestern border to free the capital from Khmer Rouge's regime.

A battle commences in Cambodia. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese soldiers played a vital role in building, training and supporting Cambodian revolutionary forces to rid the country of Khmer Rouge and their genocidal agenda. The Khmer Rouge's social engineering policies led to the Cambodian genocide that killed around 1.8 million people from 1975 to 1979, which is about 25 percent of the Cambodian population in 1975.

People of Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia, greet Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers in 1979. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Two female soldiers from Vietnam (L) and Cambodia converse with each other. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

A Cambodian (L) and two Vietnamese soldiers converse outside the Angkor Wat temple in Angkor, Siam Reap, Cambodia, in 1982. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese soldiers carry Cambodian children out of a school that had been turned into a prison by the Khmer Rouge where 17,000 people were held. Photo by DC-Cam

A group of soldiers pose in front of a van, sporting Vietnam and Cambodia's national flags. Photo by Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam started to withdraw its forces from Cambodia in 1986 and finished withdrawal in 1989.

A Vietnamese soldier attends the withdrawal ceremony in 1989. Photo by Sputnik

Vietnamese soldiers wave goodbye to the Cambodian people as they are on their way back to Vietnam. Photo by Sputnik