Three men from the Moheshkhali upazila of Cox's Bazar have been languishing in a Thai prison for over nine years now, after being convicted of trespass.
Md Mozahar Mia, 55, Md Azizul Haque, 31, and Md Moksud Mia, 32 left home for Thailand in 2013 by sea through a middleman.
When they reached the country, they were detained and jailed for not having any travel documents, reports The Business Standard.
For the next six years, their families had no idea whether they were alive or not.
In 2019, another victim of human trafficking who shared a cell with the three, informed their families about their plight. Since then, the families have been knocking on all doors to get them back, but their efforts so far have all gone in vain.
In July 2020, Thailand arrested three Bangladeshis for ‘illegal border crossing’.
Tens of thousands of migrants from Myanmar, mainly from the Rohingya Muslim minority but also increasingly from Bangladesh, make the dangerous sea crossing to southern Thailand, a well-worn trafficking route often on the way south to Malaysia and beyond.
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