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Rohingya Migrants Recount Desperate Journeys

A group of Rohingya Muslims have told Sky News about the horrors they suffered in their Burmese homeland and their frightening journey to a new life of struggle in Malaysia.

Langkawi is a holiday island for most, but it is also a place where many of the Asian "boat people" drift ashore.

Through various contacts, we are directed to a young man who knows about the Rohingya migrants, because he is one.

Abdul Rahim made the 1,000-mile boat journey from Burma four years ago. The police have not deported him because he helps them to translate for the Rohingya who continue to arrive.

Last week, 1,100 people came ashore on two rickety wooden boats. The police rounded up most of them but some managed to escape.

Rahim, 25, drives us through the forests where those who escaped have disappeared. We don't spot anyone - but given the condition they were in last week, they are unlikely to have survived.

We are shown photographs of the migrants who were rounded up. They look frail, emaciated and desperate.

In the island's main town, Kuah, Rahim wants us to meet his friends.

We drive to a collection of corrugated iron shacks behind a new hotel development.

Gathered together are a group of Rohingya who exist here illegally. They are under the authorities' radar but want to tell us why and how they are here.

Rofia Roshid, 20, arrived eight weeks ago on one of the boats - a journey which was, by her account, fifty days of hell: no food, water or medicine.

"I watched the woman in front of me being raped by the traffickers. I am afraid of speaking because the person who was raped was then thrown over board," she says.

I ask why she left her home in Burma. She added: "We couldn't stand the killing. They set fire to our villages, burnt our houses and killed our people.

"Sometimes people come into the mosque to look for us, to track us down but we have nowhere to run. I couldn't stay in my village anymore, I had to go."

We show the group some images we filmed in the Burmese town of Sittwe two years ago. It is a place they recognise.

"This is my hometown. When I see it like this I get sad. It hurts my heart but what can I do?" says Mohammed Shariff.

They look at images of the ghettos which the Rohingya are forced into by Buddhist mobs who are supported by the government. They have no schools, no jobs and no rights.

The migrant, who took the journey himself, adds: "Because of how difficult things are, people are leaving by boat. Half arrive, half of them don't.

"Looking at all these schools being burnt, people in their homes are burnt. They can't sleep, they can't eat," he says, visibly emotional.

In the corner of the group is Senwara Ismail, a frail looking eighteen-year-old. She says she arrived two months ago after five months in a traffickers camp in Thailand.

The traffickers often promise their human cargo a free ride on the boats. But when they arrive in Thailand, they are imprisoned in camps until they pay enough money. If they don't pay, they don't leave.

Through our translator, she says the camp she was in contained a thousand or so men and just 30 women. She tells us the women were repeatedly harassed and raped.

It's hard to know exactly what she's been through, but she looks deeply disturbed. At points throughout our conversation, I offer a reassuring smile - but she doesn't return it.

After an hour with the group, they are keen to leave. Rahim explains that they are here illegally. They get odd jobs on construction sites, as hotels are shooting up in Langkawi. But he says there is always the risk of arrest.

Just before we leave, I ask Rahim about his past. He offers just one short story, but it says it all.

"My home was set on fire by Buddhist monks," he says.

"My father and my five brothers were inside. They all died."