PHUKET: These are the faces and names of 18 Rohingya women and children who have become the target of traffickers in the latest escape from a family shelter north of Phuket.

Some of them are being trafficked today, others are to be sold as ''slaves'' soon.

The women and children went over the wall at the government-run Khao Lak shelter about 2am on Sunday, apparently no longer prepared to wait for a decision by the Thai Government on their status and futures.

Since January, when authorities interrupted the people trafficking trade through Thailand, small groups of women and children have been enticed from the shelter.

Fleeing ethnic cleansing in Burma, the women and children continue the journey to Malaysia once traffickers have been paid their usual fee of 60,000 baht per adult.

The traffickers buy and sell people along the Andaman coast under the noses of authorities, probably with the help of renegade officers among the police and the military.

Twelve of the women and children in the Photo Album above have had the demands for cash by the traffickers met by close family or other relatives already in Malaysia.

The 12 will be trafficked across the Thai-Malaysia border on Tuesday afternoon, we are told.

Six have been less fortunate, acording to a reliable source who has spoken to the broker. No payment has been made for them.

The six, one woman and five boys, are being held in a house in the province of Surat Thani, Phuketwan has been told.

The five boys are likely to be offered as indentured ''slaves'' on Thai or Malaysian fishing trawlers, the trafficking ''broker'' told our source.

Crews on Thai fishing boats often work under harsh conditions or abuse that frequently leads to death or serious injury.

Phuketwan has yet to determine which six of the 18 pictured above are still being held by the trafficker.