Police told to remove Iraqi refugees from E. Nusa Tenggara

Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang

East Nusa Tenggara Deputy Governor Johanis Pake Pani has asked the provincial police to remove Iraqi refugees from the province because they are the responsibility of the central government and the International Migration Organization (IOM).

"I am asking the police to coordinate with IOM to deport the refugees to other provinces that are ready to accommodate them," he said when receiving 37 delegates representing more than 1,700 Iraqi refugees in his office here on Tuesday.

Achmed Al Hamid, spokesman for the refugees, said they wanted to be moved to Java where their fellow refugees had received better service from IOM.

He said they were running short of medicine and housing.

Meanwhile, Adj. Sr. Comr. Masirman of the command and control unit at the Provincial Police Headquarters said that there were no longer any administrations in Java willing to receive illegal foreign immigrants.

"We will try to move the refugees to West Nusa Tenggara because the people in the province have expressed their readiness to receive the Iraqi refugees," he said.

According to data from the social affairs office in the city, the 1,700 Iraqi asylum seekers are being accommodated in a Kupang police mess and hotels in Kupang and East Flores.