Deported RI workers left stranded
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra
At least 176 Indonesian workers have been stranded in North Sumatra and are waiting to be returned to their homes throughout the archipelago after being deported from Malaysia, security officers said Saturday.
The workers, including 72 women, were left abandoned by their brokers in the town of Panyabungan in Mandailing Natal regency after they arrived at Belawan Port in the provincial capital of Medan on Thursday.
Police and military removed them on Saturday from several places where they had been sheltering in Mandailing Natal.
The deported workers are now sheltering at the Mandailing Natal Police station before they are returned to their hometowns in Madura and Surabaya in East Java; Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara; West Kalimantan; Batam, Dumai and Pekanbaru in Riau.
Panyabungan military chief Capt. Yamin Sohar said the deportees were moved after two of them reported their problems to his office.
He said his personnel and police had managed to arrest several brokers suspected of transporting them to Mandailing Natal from Belawan Port.
The illegal workers told investigators that the brokers had promised to take them from Mandailing Natal to Dumai aboard a bus before sending them home, Yamin said.
However, the suspects left the workers stranded in Panyabungan, he added.
Mandailing Natal Police deputy chief Adj. Comr. A.M. Kamal vowed to try to find the main suspects behind the case.
"This act cannot be justified because it makes people suffer," he said.
Meanwhile, Malaysia is watching all entry points fearing that many illegal migrants would attempt to return to Malaysia after leaving for Idul Fitri celebrations, AFP reported Saturday.
Marine police would ensure that foreign workers without proper permits who left the country would not be able to reenter, Aseh Che Mat, the Home Ministry's secretary-general, was quoted as saying.
To date, a total of 1,200 illegal immigrants have been caned by Malaysian authorities under tough immigration laws introduced on Aug. 1 last year.
More than 300,000 mainly Indonesian illegal immigrants left Malaysia last year under a four-month amnesty.