Trekking through dense jungle and mountainous terrain at night to avoid arrest, one couple from Myanmar endured a gruelling journey to Thailand – grasping for an economic lifeline as jobs dry up in their coup-hit home.
Myo Chit and his wife are among thousands of migrants who have made the crossing in recent months, spurred by the twin crises of a pandemic-hit economy and turmoil triggered by the junta’s ousting of Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government.
Their two-day journey from Myanmar’s coastal Tanintharyi Region took them through corn farms, rubber plantations and dense jungle before they reached the porous border, where they crossed into Thailand’s Kanchanaburi province with the help of a smuggler.
There they risked arrest and immediate processing for deportation by Thai police.
The couple then travelled to Samut Sakhon province near Bangkok, where Myanmar migrants have historically found work.
But for undocumented migrants in Thailand, life under the radar is grim.
Many spend their nights in overcrowded housing, or in the homes of friends and relatives, and their days evading authorities.
“But we could not stay [in our town] . . . we had to think about the future of our children,” 45-year-old Myo Chit said, using a pseudonym for fear of being tracked down by the Thai authorities.
He eventually secured the job he was desperate for at a clothing dye factory, earning $10 a day.
With a six-year-old child and an infant left in his in-laws’ care in Myanmar, Myo Chit said...
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