Seeking Asylum
<p>Barat Ali Batoor</p>
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Barat Ali Batoor

The first part of the land and sea journey begins after asylum seekers fly into Thailand. Here, Syed Arif, an Afghan asylum seeker, stares out of a hotel window in the southern border town of Sungai Kolok. The town is in an area affected by a brutal insurgency that has killed more than 5,000 people since 2004.
<p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p><p>Barat Ali Batoor</p>

What People Smuggling Looks Like

By Aubrey BelfordOctober 16, 2012

Photojournalist Barat Ali Batoor, 29, is a Hazara asylum seeker who fled Afghanistan — with his camera.

He journeyed on a route similar to that taken by thousands of Hazara asylum seekers. From Afghanistan, he travelled through Pakistan and then flew to Thailand, from where he traveled by land, sea and air through Malaysia and Indonesia. From outside Jakarta he boarded a boat to Australia, but when it started to sink, he jumped off in the jungles of western Java. After two days of wandering with other asylum seekers, he was picked up, detained, and then escaped.

This exclusive photo essay shows Batoor’s trip, up to the point where his camera got soaked when the boat sank. His images are an incredible record of life and the presence of death on the road to a new life in Australia.

You can read the full story of Batoor and another asylum seeker, Barkat Ali, and listen to Batoor’s audio account of the journey here.

Related stories

See more of Batoor’s story on SBS Dateline on Australian television on Oct. 16. A preview is here.

7 comments on this story
by Marilyn

0Trouble is that it is no more people smuggling than it is flying to the moon, it is merely people exercising their legal right to seek asylum and by passing the immigration controls of very unfriendly countries who tend to deport them.

If refugees cannot get or pay for transport they tend to die and there is this trifling little thing called the smuggling protocols which forbids the criminalising of paying anyone to be safe.

October 16, 2012 @ 6:17pm
by Andrew

AGREED^

October 17, 2012 @ 3:45pm
by Helena

surprised to see that the asylum seekers were wearing life jackets - I'm sure that many make the journey without them

I wonder how much it all costs them all up - especially given that they have to pay so many people along the way :(

October 18, 2012 @ 10:07pm
by Homer Sapien

To me it looks a bit more like immigration to a wealthy nation than asylum seeking? Just a thought. ; )

October 22, 2012 @ 4:55pm
Show previous 4 comments
by Rebecca

Afghanistan is a very frightening place to live in - compounded especially if you are directly threatened.

October 23, 2012 @ 1:57am
by Marilyn

Why do people think that how much people pay to be safe has any bearing on anything? There is no requirement on refugees to be destitute.

October 24, 2012 @ 6:18pm
by Liz

Does anyone else see the irony in the third photo? The man is wearing a University of Illinois Alumni t-shirt. First world meets third world, educations meets desperation. I wonder how he came to own this item of clothing? Maybe I am reading too much into it, but it stood out to me.

December 6, 2012 @ 4:44am
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