Jamal and Enayatullah are cousins, young Afghanis who live in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, right on top of the Afghan border. Jamal, an orphan, scrapes a living in a brick factory and lives in the sprawling Shamshatoo refugee camp. His cousin works on his family′s market stall. To give him the opportunity of a better life, Enayatullah′s family decides that their boy will be sent to England. Jamal persuades the family that he should be sent along too. The pair join the ranks of the 1 million refugees per year who place their lives in the hands of people smugglers. Travelling the well-trodden black market route where carparts, petrol, opium and tobacco are trafficked alongside human cargo, the pair begin a perilous journey half way across the world, that mounts in difficulty the longer they persevere. A forceful distillation of the experiences of a multitude of real life asylum seekers whose courageous stories so often end in tragedy.