SIBU, March 5 — "One of our taukehs failed to strike a business deal so he fled and left us,” revealed Enyang anak Ato, 66, one of the eight Malaysians who were stranded in Monrovia, Liberia since February 4, initially reported as being cheated by an employment syndicate.

Enyang who hailed from Kapit claimed that they were brought to the country by the taukeh from Sibu, who shared a sum of RM30,000 with another taukeh from Selangau, to open up a logging camp in the country.

"We went there about two months ago with the taukeh. He was with us for a week before he fled after he failed to strike a deal there,” he told reporters after lodging a report at Sibu Airport police post last night.

Besides Enyang, the others who were stranded were Aji anak Surau, Bon anak Egat, Sallim Tahir, Suhaili Gani, Gawan anak Masin, Untol anak Luyang, and Dingai anak Nyalak, all between the ages of 39 and 66.

They were left with nothing and being unable to converse in English made their life difficult.

"It was hard to communicate with people there as we do not speak English. Luckily, there were Malaysians in Liberia working with Sime Darby who came to know of our plight and gave us rice,” he said.

The group arrived from Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at about 9.15pm on board an AirAsia flight, accompanied by Bandar Kuching Member of Parliament Dr Kelvin Yii.

Only the family members of Sallim and Suhaili of Betong and Dingai of Balingian were present to welcome them at the airport apart from scores of DAP and PKR party members from Sibu and Selangau.

Dingai’s wife Ros anak Anyie of Rumah Rantai in Balingian thanked the Malaysian government for bringing back the father of her two sons aged 13 and 18.

"It had never happened to my husband before. This is his third time that he went abroad to work,” said Ros who learnt about her husband’s ordeal few weeks ago.

She said her husband told her that he just wanted to work abroad for another year before making any decision on his future job.

"It is up to him but for me, I hope he works locally instead of going abroad,” she said when asked if she would let her husband go abroad to work in the future.

Sallim’s wife, Majenah Jeni, 37, said her husband had worked in Africa twice prior to this and did not face any difficulty.

Describing the incident as very unfortunate, she told reporters that she had some sleepless night thinking about her husband’s fate.

"Now that he has safely returned, I feel relieved,” she said.

In a statement yesterday, Wisma Putra said the Foreign Ministry through concerted diplomatic and consular efforts had successfully repatriated the stranded Malaysians.  This included a letter sent by Saifuddin to his Liberian counterpart Gbehzohgar M. Findley notifying the latter about the stranded Malaysians and subsequently requested the government of Liberia’s assistance for repatriation.

This is the second successful effort by the government following the recent release of 47 Malaysians from detention in Cambodia. — Bernama

* A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.