Malaysia begins deporting illegal RI immigrants
Malaysia begins deporting illegal RI immigrants
Agencies, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia has begun deporting Indonesians seized in the roundup of thousands of people under a crackdown targeting illegal immigrants and any armed militants hiding among them, a senior government official said on Friday.
Dozens of Indonesians detained in the massive sweep across the eastern state of Sabah, on Borneo island, have been sent home since Tuesday, while hundreds more will soon follow, said Abdullah Sani Sulaiman, the state's chief immigration officer.
Malaysia detained nearly 8,000 suspected illegal immigrants in a sweep that began earlier this week in its eastern Sabah state, police said on Friday.
The detainees were mostly Indonesian and Filipino nationals who had sneaked into the state on Borneo, a giant forested island which lies just south of the Philippines and is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
A police statement said that by mid-afternoon on Friday, a total of 7,676 immigrants had been detained for screening and 1,865 marked for deportation. Hundreds of their homes have been bulldozed.
Hundreds of Filipinos seized during the same operation are expected to be sent home within two weeks, Abdullah said.
Malaysia increasingly sees illegal immigrants as a security threat, and the crackdown coincides with the detention of Islamic militants -- some of them from Indonesia -- accused of taking part in an alleged plot to blow up U.S. targets in neighboring Singapore.
Sabah lies near the predominantly Muslim southern Philippines, and separatists fighting the Philippine government have sought refuge in Sabah in the past. The Abu Sayyaf gang, which has links to the al-Qaeda terror network, kidnapped tourists and resort workers from Sabah in 2000.
Malaysia has beefed up security in its territorial waters with the Philippines recently. Philippine forces put down a bloody revolt by one group of Moro separatists in November and are being assisted by U.S. troops to destroy Abu Sayyaf.
None of the detainees has so far been identified as a militant.
Abdullah said that the deported Indonesians were being put on boats plying daily between Sabah and the Indonesian island of Nunukan. Filipinos will be shipped to Zamboanga in the southern Philippines.
"Deporting Philippine citizens takes more time, because the Philippine Embassy has to issue them individual travel documents," Abdullah told The Associated Press by telephone from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah's capital.