Traffickers paid off to save migrants

Helping hands: Indonesians providing water and food to Rohingya migrants before they are transported by buses and trucks in Langsa after being rescued by fishermen off the eastern coast of Aceh.

SITTWE (Myanmar): As Mahmoud Yasien kneeled before the people smugglers and begged for his pregnant wife’s life, the Rohingya migrant’s dreams of a better life evaporated, his ship stranded hundreds of miles from its destination in Malaysia.

His pleas spared her life and when phone calls relayed news of their nightmare journey back to their community in a displacement camp in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, neighbours cobbled together the cash to pay off the smugglers and buy them back from the boat.