Immigrants in KL end hunger strike

Immigrants in KL end hunger strike

MALAYSIA: More than 100 illegal immigrants, many of them thought to be asylum seekers from Indonesia and Myanmar, have ended a hunger strike begun two days ago at a Malaysian detention camp, a United Nations (UN) refugee official said on Wednesday.

"It was stopped at noon today," Volker Turk, Malaysia representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told Reuters. "They realized that the hunger strike doesn't help and it can be counter-productive."

Rights groups said the detainees began their fast on Monday morning to protest against cramped and dirty conditions at the Semenyih center, one of the country's largest immigration detention complexes, near the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The UNHCR said the center housed about 1,500 immigrants who are to be deported.

Malaysia's population of 25 million is richer than those of more populous neighbors Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, and attracts tens of thousands of illegal workers each year from those countries. -- Reuters