TAWAU: The Sabah Immigration Department urged the embassies of Indonesia and the Philippines to expedite the issuance of travel documents for their nationals currently detained at immigration depots in the State.
Its Director Datuk Sh Sitti Saleha Habib Yussof said prolonged delays in processing these documents have resulted in detainees being held for up to four months due to the lack of valid travel papers for repatriation.
“For example, 969 Indonesian nationals remain at the Tawau Immigration Detention Depot because they have yet to receive their Sijil Perjalanan Laksana Pasport (SPLP) from either the Indonesian Consulate-General in Kota Kinabalu or the Indonesian Consulate in Tawau,” she said.
window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []};googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.defineSlot('/22826383987/dailyexpress_inline', [1, 1], 'gpt-passback').addService(googletag.pubads());googletag.enableServices();googletag.display('gpt-passback');});“I sincerely urge the embassies to accelerate this process, so the detainees can be sent home and return to normal life,” she told a press conference at the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) Terminal here, after overseeing the repatriation of 108 Indonesian nationals.
She noted that the delays are not isolated to Tawau, but also occurring at detention depots in Papar, Sandakan and Kota Kinabalu.
As of July 31, according to departmental data, 6,454 foreign nationals have been repatriated via 104 transfer operations, 224 by air and 6,230 by sea.
They comprised 4,989 Filipinos, 1,283 Indonesians, 104 Pakistanis, 48 Chinese nationals, 11 Vietnamese and 19 others.
Sitti Saleha expressed hope that all embassies involved would continue to cooperate with the Department to resolve the issue.
In the latest development, 108 detainees from DTI Tawau comprising 82 men and 26 women aged between 18 and 65 were repatriated to Nunukan, North Kalimantan via the CIQ Ferry Terminal in Tawau.
