For six weeks in Spring 1980, he assisted in war surgery missions in refugee camps Khao-I-Dang and Nong Mak Mun between Thailand and Cambodia. He was a member of a medical team of the "Soforthilfe e.V.", a German non-governmental organization, privately established in Munich at the end of 1979 in response to the Cambodian refugee crisis. Initially in cooperation with Rupert Neudeck's committee "Ein Schiff für Vietnam" ("A Ship for Vietnam"), "Soforthilfe" "e.V." provided large-scale medical help on the ground during the Emergency Period 1979-1981. In "Deutsches Ärzteblatt", Schoeneich, along with three colleagues, described the extent of violence in the camps, military attacks and evacuations.