RP ship leaves Malaysia with sick children

RP ship leaves Malaysia with sick children

Agencies, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Philippine investigators on Tuesday began to probe conditions at Malaysian deportation camps accused of ill-treating Filipino illegal immigrants as a navy ship carrying sick children set sail for home.

The San Juan was carrying 150 women and children as it began the six-hour journey to Bongao in the southern Philippines from Sandakan in Malaysia's eastern Sabah state on Borneo island.

"On board the vessel were 16 children who are suffering from bronchitis, diarrhea, dehydration and ulcers," said Redentor Radino, a doctor with the Philippines' department of health.

"But they are fit to travel," he said, adding that they would be given immediate medical attention when they arrived in Bongao.

The deportees had boarded the ship on Saturday, but it left Sandakan just hours before the arrival Tuesday of the Philippine government investigators.

The investigation was arranged by Philippine President Gloria Arroyo in a telephone call to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, whose government has denied claims of ill-treatment of deported Filipinos.

Officials in the Philippines have alleged that at least three children have died during the recent deportation of some 12,000 Filipinos.

Earlier, Jose Brillantes, the Philippines ambassador to Malaysia, told AFP the delegation began its work by meeting Sabah chief minister Chong Kah Kiat and would later visit the detention centers to get a first-hand view of conditions.

The seven-man Philippine delegation is led by Arroyo's adviser on Muslim affairs Nur Jaafar.

"The central theme of the discussions is how to ease the hardship faced by the migrants," Brillantes said, adding that the Philippine team would visit all three camps in Sabah.

The camps, each of which can hold 1,000 people, are in the capital Kota Kinabalu, and in the towns of Sandakan and Tawau on the east coast near the southern Philippines.

Brillantes said that at the talks Tuesday Manila proposed two additional exit points be opened for the deportees -- from Kota Kinabalu and Tawau and not just through Sandakan.

This would shorten the journey and reduce any physical or mental stress on them, especially the infants and the old.

Brillantes said Manila sought Malaysia's cooperation for a planned deportation of the estimated 80,000 Filipino illegals still in the state so that it would not impose a burden on both economies.

In response, Ghapur Salleh, minister in the chief minister's office said Sabah would refer Manila's request to Kuala Lumpur for consideration and pressed Filipinos to enter Malaysia legally.

"The state welcomes foreigners ... as long as they are properly documented," he said.

Ghapur said Chong urged Manila to establish a permanent consulate in the state to handle the problems of Filipinos in particular related to travel documents.

Malaysia's crackdown on illegal immigrants, who flock to the relatively wealthy Southeast Asian nation in search of jobs, has sparked protests in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Some 380,000 people, mainly from those two countries, fled Malaysia during a four-month amnesty ahead of the introduction last month of harsh new punishments for illegal immigrants, including jail terms and caning.

Meanwhile, the Philippines said on Tuesday it was looking into a newspaper report that Malaysian police had sexually abused some Filipino Christian women detained on Sabah island.

"The government, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development, is seriously but quietly looking into reports of sexual abuse in deportation camps in Sabah," Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said in a statement.

"We have no official reports on this matter yet, but we would like to ask that this matter be handled prudently by the media to protect the dignity of any victims."

The Philippine Daily Inquirer said on Tuesday the incidents in Tawau were reported by two Filipinos it interviewed after they were expelled from Malaysia recently in the wake of that country's crackdown on illegal immigrants.

According to one deportee's account, "a woman would be taken out of the detention cell and brought to an upstairs room, which the policemen would subsequently enter one by one...The woman would emerge from the room late at night," the newspaper said.