Filipino migrants arrested in Sabah

Filipino migrants arrested in Sabah

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Malaysian security forces, backed by helicopters and speedboats, swooped down on an island off Borneo and arrested 225 people, mainly Filipino immigrants without proper documents, a news report said on Friday.

The Gaya island, off the remote northeastern province of Sabah, was cordoned off midnight Wednesday as authorities checked more than 2,000 people living there, the Star newspaper said, quoting police officials.

More than 900 families who did not have proper documents were evicted from the island.

The island was once a popular destination for poor Filipinos fleeing the Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Philippines. Many of the immigrants still live in dilapidated wooden huts and work as laborers on mainland Sabah.

Government officials estimate about 600,000 Filipinos, mostly Muslims, live in Sabah, a state which is separated from the insurgency-wracked Philippine provinces by a strip of water called the Sulu Sea.