ROHINGYA PEOPLE TRAFFICKING
Fleeing Rohingya at the mercy of a smuggling network greased by graft
Members of the ethnic minority arriving from Myanmar and Bangladesh in hope of better lives enter a tangled human trafficking web in Thailand, where local officials, complicitous members of their own group and fixers make them pay dearly for their dreams
- Published: 13 Jan 2013 at 00.00
- Newspaper section: Spectrum
For desperate Rohingya arrested in Thai territory, hope for the future can rest simply with how much money they have to pay off local officials and human traffickers. The prospects are dire for those without the required cash _ being sold into slavery is commonplace.
CAST ADRIFT: On Jan 1, 73 Rohingya travelling by boat were detained at Koh Bon and taken to Phuket immigration office.
Muh, a 43-year-old Rohingya living in Bangkok for over a decade, has intimate knowledge of trafficking operations originating in either Bangladesh or Myanmar's Rakhine state, where stateless Rohingya have been subjected to violent persecution in recent months.
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