KOTA KINABALU, Nov 22 — The Federal Sabah and Labuan Special Task Force managed to repatriate 11,992 illegal immigrants from the three temporary detention centres in Sabah to their countries of origin between January and November 21, this year.
Its director Datuk Suhaimi Mohd Salleh said out of this figure, 9,414 were from the Philippines, 2,423 from Indonesia and the other 155 from other countries.
He said currently, there were still 2,882 illegals at the Sabah detention centres, with 1,795 of them at the Papar centre, 826 at the Tawau centre and 261 at the Sibuga centre.
Suhaimi said the issuing of the repatriation order was being speeded up from six months to three months, depending on each case, to save costs at the detention centres.
“The repatriation of illegals is made after they received the relevant documents from their respective embassies for the passage back home,” he said, here, today. Suhaimi said the repatriation order was issued by the Immigration Department. — Bernama
