RI workers on strike in Malaysia

RI workers on strike in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuter): More than 500 Indonesians detained for illegally entering Malaysia were on a hunger strike yesterday demanding quick deportation home, police said.

The protesters, part of some 1,000 illegals at the Kemayan immigration detention camp in the eastern state of Pahang, have gone without food and water since early on Monday, police said.

"They are still on hunger strike," a senior Pahang police official told Reuters by telephone. He did not elaborate.

Pahang police and other officials were meeting yesterday to find a solution to the problem, police sources said.

"The situation is under control and they are still calm," a police source said.

The New Straits Times daily said some of the immigrants were believed to have been detained for more than five months.

Booming Malaysia has been a magnet for foreign workers from poorer neighboring countries.

More than 1.2 million foreign workers are employed in the labor-starved country, which has a population of 20 million people, including several hundred thousand employed illegally.

The Malaysian government said late last year that 71 people had died since 1991 in immigration detention centers.

Activist groups said the deaths were a result of poor food and conditions at the camps. The government said most of the victims were already very sick when they were detained.