Four Corners: June 22

Monday’s Four Corners presents ‘Journey into Hell’, with Mark Davis on the trail of the traffickers exploiting the most unwanted people on the planet.

They promise a safe passage away from persecution and a new life in a safe haven. Instead they beat, rape, starve and often kill those who put their trust in them. They’re the people smugglers trading in human misery.

Four Corners investigates the network that has trafficked tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into Thailand, through eye-witness accounts as well as video and audio recordings.

We take the smugglers’ route, discovering their methods and their alliances.

The traffickers show no mercy and make no distinction between men, women and children.

The scale is extraordinary, the cruelty extreme.

So what is driving these refugees to put their lives in the hands of the smugglers?

Reporter Mark Davis travelled undercover into Myanmar to find out. It’s a story the government there does not want told. More than 100,000 Rohingya are held in camps in Myanmar, some in a ghetto where no-one is allowed in or out unless under armed guard. In some camps, starvation is taking hold. It’s a human rights disaster that has been hidden from view.

Monday 22nd June 8.30pm ABC