55 Paralysis of Captives “Some men could no longer walk from being in the camp. There were seven of them. I also became paralyzed.” —Rohingya boy, 16, who survived torture and deprivations, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 2014 Severe nutritional and space deprivations in the human-trafficking camps left many captives with paralysis. Medical professionals told Fortify Rights that most cases of paralysis among survivors of the human-trafficking camps were likely due to beriberi, a highly preventable disease that affects the nervous system and can lead to heart failure and death if untreated.192 Beriberi is caused by a nutritional deficiency of vitamin B1. Survivors described symptoms consistent with those of beriberi—deprivations in physical space and being denied the ability to stretch legs would have also likely contributed to cases of paralysis. “Mohammed T.” was 16 when he fled Myanmar in 2012. He experienced paralysis along with others confined to a human-trafficking camp for a protracted period without access to adequate food or nutrients: In this camp, there were 400 people and then 90 and then 45 people. Those who transferred money to [the trafficker’s] bank accounts were sent to Malaysia. Twenty-five of the last 45 people couldn’t walk. We were paralyzed. I could walk a little bit, and we escaped from the camp. Some couldn’t walk. Their bodies were carried by the brokers and thrown beside the road in the rubber plantation. They got new people, people coming from boats, and they were throwing [those who couldn’t pay] out. Some Thai Muslims took the bodies and brought them here [to a mosque in Sadao in southern Thailand].193 When Fortify Rights spoke to “Ebadullah,” 25, a Rohingya man from Buthidaung Township, Myanmar, he had noticeably thin legs and was just beginning to regain strength at a communityled refugee shelter in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He had been paralyzed from the waist down after traffickers confined him for several months with minimal food in a human-trafficking camp in Thailand. He told Fortify Rights: The most difficult situation I faced was in the [human-trafficking] camp in Thailand. We had to stay in one place, and we couldn’t move anywhere. They provided us two meals of rice per day. It was too crowded. We couldn’t extend our legs . . . Upon my payment [to the traffickers], I was brought to Malaysia. Those who could pay were brought to the Malaysian-Thai border by car. Two of us could not walk. We were paralyzed. I asked a guy who was healthy, “When the van comes, please take us with you.”194 Traffickers in Thailand left “Abdul,” a 17-year-old Rohingya boy who fled Myanmar in April 2014, for dead after he became paralyzed. He said: “Five of us [captives] were paralyzed and couldn’t move, so they [traffickers] left us behind. For five days, we didn’t have any food or drink. During the night, I saw a light from very far away. I shouted but no one came.”195 Eventually a Thai man and woman happened upon Abdul and the two other survivors: “In the morning, a [Thai] man and woman saw us and told us to wait. They returned with some rice and food and took us to a road and then called an ambulance.”196 192 Fortify Rights meeting with medical doctor, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 2014. 193 Fortify Rights interview with #43, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 194 Fortify Rights interview with #04, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 10, 2014. 195 Fortify Rights interview with #44, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 196 Ibid.