II. On Land: Abuses at Human-Trafficking Camps and Houses in Thailand and Malaysia 44 “Yusuf,” 19, told Fortify Rights: “I saw two people die in the camp. They couldn’t get proper food. The dallals took them in the car and buried them after the prayers.”119 A 26-year-old Rohingya man from Buthidaung Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, who spent 11 months detained in a Thai immigration detention center before being handed over to human traffickers, described witnessing 17 deaths in the human-trafficking camps on the MalaysiaThailand border in 2014: The first two months in the camp, nobody died, but in the last month, 17 people died. For about ten minutes, they said they had pain in their chests, and then they just died. Their bodies shook before they died. If someone said they had pains and their bodies shook, we knew they would die within minutes. Some couldn’t move their bodies or walk. Some couldn’t urinate. Some had bad chest pains. For these reasons, people were dying. When 17 people died, the brokers decided to move to another place, so we were moved not far from here, and people died there too.120 “Mohammed T.,” 18, who fled his home in Sittwe in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in late 2012, witnessed more than 25 people die in the same two camps. He told Fortify Rights: In the camp, 17 people died during our last few weeks [in the camp]. At the time, I was very weak. [The people who died] got different diseases, because they couldn’t eat enough food and water and couldn’t bathe. Also, the weather was rough. Sometimes, they would have pains and just die. When we moved to the new camp, more people died. We stayed in the new camp for one-and-a-half months. Within a month-and-a-half, 12 or 13 more people died.121 “Noor Wai,” 15, spent four months in a human-trafficking camp from May through September 2014 and told Fortify Rights: Every day, three or four people died. Many people died. The situation was very bad. They died for many different reasons. The main reason is because they could not move around. They had to stay in the same place, and then they would die.122 “Abdul R.” spent several months in a human-trafficking camp in 2013, but, unlike most, only witnessed one death during his time in the camp: We weren’t allowed to talk to each other. If we talked to each other, we were beaten. We couldn’t speak at all. If we spoke, they beat us with a stick. There were many people unable to walk, unable to move, but I only saw one person die during my stay. I saw a man die because of swelling.123 Twenty-year-old Foyas said he witnessed dozens of deaths during his three-week period of confinement in a makeshift human-trafficking camp on the Malayisa-Thailand border in early 2014: “The rain caused many problems. Many people died. Many people were swelling. At least 30 people died.”124 The traffickers released Foyas after his family made a wire payment of more than 6,000 Malaysian Ringgit (approximately US$1,700) into a Maybank bank account in Malaysia.125 Fortify Rights 119 Fortify Rights interview with #05, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 10, 2014. 120 Fortify Rights interview with #45, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 121 Fortify Rights interview with #43, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 122 Fortify Rights interview with #69, Penang State, Malaysia, October 1, 2014. 123 Fortify Rights interview with #55, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 27, 2014. 124 Fortify Rights interview with #19, Pahang State, Malaysia, August 13, 2014. 125 Fortify Rights transcript of recorded telephone call between Rohingya community leader and human trafficker, Bangkok, Thailand, October 29, 2013.