Myanmar's Rohingya face hunger and death on brutal sea exodus

Bibijan Rahimullah poses during an interview with AFP in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 13.

KUALA LUMPUR: Bibijan Rahimullah stepped aboard a small boat in Myanmar in October for what she was told would be a week-long journey to Malaysia to escape violence  afflicting her Rohingya ethnic group. 

Instead, she and her three young children endured a harrowing, month-long odyssey by sea and land, packed “like sardines” on a series of vessels and watched several fellow migrants die or be beaten to death, their bodies tossed into the sea like garbage.