53 torture perpetrated by the traffickers against them.179 Fortify Rights located several of these same men in Malaysia after traffickers in Thailand released them and confirmed the abuses they suffered at the hands of traffickers.180 Deprivations of Food, Water, Physical Space, and Shelter The Commission and Fortify Rights documented how members of a transnational criminal syndicate operating human-trafficking camps in Thailand and Malaysia denied captives adequate food, water, shelter, and space. Traffickers in some camps provided small amounts of rice and water twice daily; in other camps, traffickers fed captives once per day. Traffickers generally guarded over their captives, confining them to a defined space often with inadequate protection from weather. In many cases documented by Fortify Rights, these deprivations led to death or paralysis.181 All witnesses interviewed by the Commission who survived the human-trafficking camp at Wang Kelian testified that their captors gave them only small portions of food; three witnesses said they were given rice and pepper only, and one testified that he received no food at all from the traffickers.182 A 26-year-old Rohingya man, who survived three months of captivity in two separate humantrafficking camps, described conditions in the camps, saying: “There was tarpaulin on the ground and roof. We couldn’t move around, couldn’t have a shower, and didn’t have enough space. They provided only tiny amounts of water. We had to eat rice that smelled bad and dried fish.”183 “Mohammed Ishmael,” 20, described similar conditions in the human-trafficking camp where traffickers held him after he arrived in Thailand: [The traffickers] put tarpaulin on the ground, and the roof was tarpaulin too. They constructed bamboo fences and kept us inside. We were locked inside. Whenever they received two million Myanmar Kyat (US$2,000; 7,000 Malaysian Ringgit), then they would release someone. There were two [nearby] camps like this with 150 [people] in each camp. We had to sleep on top of each other.184 “Naw Begum,” 40, described multiple camps in a mountain location on the Malaysia-Thailand border where traffickers confined her for six months: There were three camps. There were different levels because it was on a mountain. In the upper camp, there were three to four hundred people. The other two camps were empty when we arrived. There were 170 in our group. They separated the men and women. We had to sleep very close to each other. The toilets were a hole with cement. They built it. They covered it with leaves. They provided a small amount of rice, sometimes with chicken or dried fish . . . If we had to stay longer in the camp, we would have died . . . Just before we left the camp to come to Bangkok [in June 2013], 350 people arrived four days earlier.185 179 See, for example, Fortify Rights audio recording #34, October 29, 2013. See also, “For Myanmar Muslim Minority, No Escape from Brutality,” New York Times; “Atrocities in Myanmar,” Public Broadcasting Service, April 18, 2014, http:// www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2014/04/18/april-18-2014-atrocities-in-myanmar/22768/ (accessed on March 25, 2019). 180 See, for example, Fortify Rights interview with #17 and #19 in Pahang State, Malaysia, August 13, 2014. 181 On testimonies alleging deaths of Rohingya in trafficking camps in Thailand from 2012-2015, see, Chapter II. Section, “Killings and Preventable Deaths.” 182 The Commission interviews with W2, W3, W7, and W12, Kedah State, Malaysia, November 10-12, 2016. 183 Fortify Rights interview with #45, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 184 Fortify Rights interview with #50, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 185 Fortify Rights interview with #49, Bangkok, Thailand, September 23, 2014.