Desperate Rohingya caught on cross-border narcotics runs: police

Growing numbers of outcast Rohingya refugees are risking their lives by crossing the closed Myanmar-Bangladesh border with narcotics pills packed into their stomachs, police said Tuesday.

Scores of Rohingya Muslims, including many women, who fled to camps in Bangladesh after a Myanmar military clampdown in 2017, have been detained in recent months after returning to seek drugs and transport them, according to police.

Narcotics control official Soman Mondol said an anti-drug squad had arrested 18 Rohingya near the border town of Teknaf on one day this month and 13 had 'yaba' methamphetamine pills in their stomach.

Myanmar has become a major producer of yaba -- a Thai word meaning "crazy medicine" -- which has become wildly popular in Bangladesh, as well as other southeast Asian nations.

Refugees earn up to 20,000 taka (USD 237) for each narcotics trip, Mondol said, adding "for a Rohingya, it's a lot of money." The drug is carried in the stomach where it is difficult to detect without ..