For decades, tens of thousands of Tibetans — primarily children — have left their homelands never to return again.

-by Lobsang Gelek for RFA Investigative

Norbu was only 17 the first time he helped smuggle Tibetans out of Tibet. One cog in a well-oiled machine, Norbu — who is being referred to as a pseudonym for security reasons — played the role of a guide. His job was to meet small groups of escapees at the Dram border (Zhangmu) in southwest Tibet and lead them along remote pathways into the safety of Nepal. All were fleeing Chinese repression back home.

To avoid patrols on both sides of the border, their only option was to take strenuous mountain routes during the middle of the night. After three or four hours of trekking, they’d reach a village safe house. There, the group would await cars to take them the rest of the way to Kathmandu, where they could be registered and processed by the Tibetan government-in-exile’s reception center.

“There was one Tibetan who was so frightened that even when we reached the house in the village he was still trembling,” Norbu recalled in a recent interview, raising his voice as he mirrored the mournful cry the man made.

A member of Nepal’s Sherpa ethnicity, Norbu, now 33, grew up in the Himalayas — which has long served as a natural border between Tibet and Nepal. His shared background and his Nepalese-accented Tibetan made him a good fit for the shadowy job of a smuggler.

The term “smuggler,” however, is rarely used by Tibetans, who call men like Norbu lamtikpa (ལམ་འཁྲིད་པ།), which means guide in Tibetan. Click here to read more.