IN DOZENS of abandoned jungles camps, less than 500km from partying tourists in Phuket, lies the graves of hundreds of people who were tortured, held for ransom and then killed if their families couldn’t pay up.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the atrocities near the Thai border town of Padang Besar, is that they took place with the full knowledge of officials in surrounding townships, many of whom benefited from the misery of one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Four Corners reporter Mark Davis travelled to Thailand where he spoke to one young man who witnessed the horrifying treatment of the Rohingya in these jungle camps.

“If families didn’t pay the men were beaten to death, the women were raped to death in many cases, and the children were not spared,” Davis told news.com.au.

Davis visited an abandoned camp in the mountains near the Thai border with Malaysia, which was littered with “bamboo housing, pits, cages, the detritus of clothing and footwear”.

At some camps human remains have also been found but a former guard of the camp told Davis that the smugglers at this one were clever enough to bury the bodies elsewhere.

The former guard led Davis to a mass grave in the nearby town of Padang Besar where he had personally buried about 20 Rohingya bodies in a field of about 100 graves. The site was located behind a police station and overlooking this graveyard was the newly built mansion of one of the smugglers.

“It just shows the level of complicity, everyone was making a buck on the torment of these people,” Davis said.

Most of the people held in the jungle camps had willingly got on boats in Myanmar in the hopes of making it to Malaysia, an Islamic country, but were instead taken to these camps on the Thai border and tortured so the smugglers could extort money from their families.

“If their families pay the money they are released into Malaysia ... if they don’t pay them they’re dead — there are hundreds of graves up there, perhaps thousands, no one has any idea yet,” Davis said.

Smugglers were charging about $2000 per person for the promise of a new life. A deposit of about $200 could get someone on a boat.

“One boatload of 400 people, that’s $800,000, this was hugely profitable ... and there was no shortage of people putting their hands out,” Davis said.

Shockingly, most people around the camps must have known about their existence. Davis said the camps were not that remote.

“One guard said there were 50 camps that had thousands of people in them, these were surrounded by villages and roads, this has been happening on an industrial scale for the last three years,” Davis said.

Hundreds of people, sometimes 500 in one day, would be transported to these jungle camps in trucks and cars. “The idea that someone didn’t know about this is laughable now,” Davis said.

The mayor of Padang Besar and his deputy have recently been arrested for their involvement in the trade and a senior Thai general has also been arrested but Davis said this was just the tip of the iceberg of who was involved.

THE REAL CULPRITS

But while the smugglers and the Thai authorities were raking in the money from this human misery, Davis has laid the blame for this atrocity at the feet of the Myanmar authorities who have literally bulldozed the businesses and homes of the Rohingya.

Davis knew that the Muslim ethnic group had been pushed out of Sittwe, the capital city of the Rakhine state in western Myanmar, but he had no idea about the true extent of their treatment until he visited the region.

“What we found was that the Rohingya until a couple of years ago, were a very successful, commercially astute community living in the city of Sittwe.

“A Buddhist extremist mob turned on them very violently, their houses were burnt down, their businesses were burnt down, their wealth was taken away from them and they were pushed out of Sittwe and fled to the coast.”

Meanwhile, the government bulldozed the Muslim quarter of Sittwe where they had been living. The area was one of Sittwe’s main commercial districts and now it looks like an open paddock.

“It’s like driving through Sydney and then seeing an open field,” Davis said.

About 140,000 Rohingya were forced away from the city, into an area of dried up mud flats near the sea now known as the Sittwe internally displaced people camp. They live on rations provided by the United Nations and the area has been fenced so they cannot leave.

“As far as the government of Myanmar is concerned, that’s where they will stay, it’s one of the more extreme refugee situations I’ve seen,” Davis said.

Davis said residents believed that if they left they would be killed by Buddhist extremists, or if they were caught by the police, they would be put in jail for one month.

Those that fought back were punished harshly. Davis said the members of one village were left to starve because they fought back against Buddhist extremists in 2012.

“The government declared that they were combatants, and therefore were not considered displaced, so they were not entitled to UNHCR assistance or rations,” Davis said.

They now live in the camp and have to beg for food from other refugees.

“One old lady said she hadn’t eaten for five days, it’s not hard to see what the incentive for getting on a boat is for these people.”

Driven out of the city and into these fenced in areas, there is only one way to escape — by sea.

“Quite literally the only door open to them is the sea. Traffickers basically cruise up and down from the mother ship, they say, ‘come with us and we take you to freedom’. No one else is saying that to them.”

Davis said that Myanmar had got away with the outrageous treatment of these unnecessarily tormented people.

“It denies any of this is happening and the world allows that, but we all pay the cost.”

Neighbouring countries such as Thailand and Indonesia were now trying to deal with the biggest refugee crisis since the Vietnam War.

The group drew international media attention last month after thousands of Rohingya were left stranded on boats in southeast Asia because no country wanted to claim them.

Even Australia has refused to help resettle Rohingya with only the US and a few other countries agreeing to take them.

“This is a refugee crisis that didn’t need to happen,” Davis said.

“It’s horrible and it’s utterly unnecessary. It could easily be solved. This is Myanmar’s problem and that is probably what is the most sickening aspect of it.”

Four Corners’ Journey to Hell airs tonight at 8.30pm.