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KOTA KINABALU – Sabah has frozen the transfer of illegal immigrants from lock-ups to temporary detention centres for deportation until the spread of Covid-19 in two centres in the state are contained.
Sabah National Security Council (NSC) director Sharifah Sitti Salehah Habib Yussof said two Covid-19 clusters have been identified by the Health Ministry in the Tawau and Kota Kinabalu detention centres.
The virus was brought in by some of the detainees who were moved from the city central prison here to the detention centres, she said.
So far, 404 cases have been recorded at the Kota Kinabalu facility and 106 in the Tawau facility. Both are currently under total lockdown.
Two other centres, in Papar and Sandakan, remain free of Covid-19.
The migrant detainees will remain in their cells at lock-ups under the Immigration Department, police or Prisons Department, while their court proceedings are temporarily halted.
“The detention centres will not accept any more migrants for the time being as most of our centres are also filled up,” Sharifah said at the Kota Kinabalu Temporary Detention Centre near Telipok here today.
“Although all four centres would be able to cater for 6,750 detainees during normal times, we have reduced the capacity to 5,000 due to the spread of Covid-19.
“There are currently 5,238 detainees at present in all four centres. The Kota Kinabalu centre already has 1,707 detainees,” she said.
Sharifah added that repatriation exercises have also been suspended as the migrants' home countries have already imposed border controls due to the virus.
“These countries had already imposed border control in March. But when Malaysia was able to flatten the curve in the first wave of Covid-19, we were able to deport some until June.
“But they enforced it again when the third wave started in Malaysia,” she said.
“Nonetheless, we will still negotiate with these countries to repatriate their citizens.”
The largest number of illegal migrants are Filipinos, followed by Indonesians.
Overall, some 6,888 migrants were repatriated from May until June.
“Most of them are Filipinos. Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has agreed to accept the return of 5,300 Filipinos and the Covid-19 screening is all paid for by the Philippines government,”she said.
Malaysia is covering costs for swab tests on Indonesian detainees, she added.
Sharifah said Sabah NSC has been given eight more halls to be used as back-up quarantine centres in the event that all detention centres are overcrowded.
She said repatriation will resume once Malaysia is able to flatten the curve again.
She added under the SOPs a detainee is only brought to a detention centre after being tested negative for the virus.
Each detention centre has two blocks assigned for isolation of new detainees. – The Vibes, November 4, 2020
