For The New York Times Magazine, Nyrola Elimä and Ben Mauk report on a human trafficking route through Southeast Asia used by hundreds of Uyghurs fleeing China.
It is a route that has left 54 Uyghurs trapped in detention camps in Thailand—some have been languishing in prison for more than eight years—and others dead from disease, accident, and alleged beatings. The route predates the rise of the mass internment in Xinjiang; Its existence was cited by Chinese authorities to justify the crackdown on Uyghur freedom of movement.
Thailand's immigration detention centers are overcrowded and unsanitary. In 2014, a three-year-old Uyghur child died from tuberculosis, an incident that led other Uyghur detainees to conduct a hunger strike. Other detainees have since died, one in 2023. Authorities in Thailand have refused the remaining Uyghur refugees access to lawyers or adequate medical care. A special rapporteur from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was unable to gain access to them. The inmates live in perpetual fear of extradition back to China, where they would likely be sent to Xinjiang’s prison complex.
Elimä and Mauk interviewed more than a dozen survivors of the route as well as current detainees who face extradition to China. Reporting across several countries on two continents, they also tracked down and confronted members of the trafficking ring who have exploited the desperation of Uyghurs fleeing Xinjiang. These stories represent a never-before-told facet of one of the most urgent human rights crises in the world.
