Last week, Ben received a call from one of our regular informers of a small community living between the borders of Burma and Thailand. This community were struggling to make ends meet and Ben called the informer to our office to discuss further.
To our surprise, the informer retorted saying that he will not reveal anymore information unless we employ him as a regular staff. Immediately we knew that he needed money but he refused to divulge further.
Last Monday, the informer called in again and asked for meeting to discuss this issue in person. Over the meeting, he gave some rough details of this needy population and told us that the only access road will be through the mountains ranges of Chiang Rai. He also asked to be stationed permantly in the vicinity to help us with our outreach (which we found suspicious considering his family is in Phetchabun)
This wek, we’re scheduled to head back to Chiang Mai to complete some paperwork and of course this will be a fantastic time conduct a full needs assessment of this new site as well (as per our operating policy) and if we have time -to also conduct a medical outreach.
We set in the rendezvous day and there we went ahead of time. The informer told us that he will meet us on 25 July to bring us to see the site.
On the 24th, we called up the informer to confirm the time and location to meet up but his phone was switched off, immediately we knew something was not right. We called back to his wife and was greeted by a sobbing lady telling us that her husband(the informer) had been arrested in Chiang Rai. On further probing, she told us that he was arrested as he was making his first drug trafficking run into Thailand from Burma.
Now, we know this informer for close to a year and he has always come across as a kindly man who has assisted our humanitarian work without asking for financial remuneration. Many times his entire family will volunteer to come alongside us to help out.
This man, a loving father in a moment weakness, fell prey to the temptation of making quick bucks went ahead to do this run and now his wife and children has to bear the brunt of his actions as he is likely to be put behind bars for the rest of his life.
Our work is always risky. Thinking back, had the arrest been later, the entire medical and needs assessment team would be probably been caught up in the this mess and arrested along with him.
All is over now, but please do keep that guy in prayer as well as his family.
