KOTA KINABALU - A total of 750 Philippine nationals who were placed in Sabah detention centres since 2020 were repatriated yesterday, Immigration Department director-general Datuk Seri Khairul Dzaimee Daud said today.
He said the Filipinos were detained at the Tawau, Sandakan, Papar and Kota Kinabalu immigration depots, before they were deported via the Sandakan port to Zamboanga City in the Philippines.
“They comprise 638 men, 81 women, 30 children under the age of 12 and one under the age of 23.
“The children were sent along with their parents and guardians.
“The repatriation exercise was delayed as the migrants’ countries of origin had used the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason,” Khairul said in a statement here today.
The youngest detainee was aged 1 and the oldest was 88.
A total of 1,519 illegal immigrants from all over Sabah had been repatriated via air, sea and land in 67 exercises between January 1 and August 29 this year under the department’s recalibration programme.
Some 332 individuals were deported via air transport, 1,186 via sea transports and one via land transport, he said.
Yesterday, Khairul said the delay in repatriation was also due to long processes in issuing travel documents at the embassies of the immigrants’ countries of origin. – The Vibes, September 7, 2022
