KUALA LANGAT, June 20 — Several fishing villages in coastal Selangor have become popular entry and exit points for Indonesians, mostly illegals.
Locals told Malay Mail that it was common for people to pay operators for a trip to or from Indonesia and have to usually travel in rickety, overcrowded wooden boats.
Within six hours on Wednesday, 13 drowned and 29 were feared missing in two boat sinkings off Banting and Sepang.
Most of the 124 passengers on both boats were believed to be illegal immigrants from Indonesia who were returning home for Ramadan.
The incidents have apparently opened a can of worms on human trafficking as the fishing settlements have been a hub for cigarette smuggling.
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency director of operations Capt Hamid Mohd Amin said it was common for Indonesians to try and use the cheapest and easiest way home possible before Ramadan and come back to Malaysia after that.
“Last year, over 78 illegal immigrants were reported missing in the sea around the same time,” he said.
Kuala Langat district police chief Supt Azman Abdul Razak, in a press conference yesterday, said that since January this year, the police have made numerous arrests involving immigrants.
“We admit that these kind of cases have been happening, especially here in the district,” he said.
“The district police have decided on a specialised action plan, where we will study and mend all possible loopholes in our surveillance from now on. We want to minimise these activities and as fast as we can, with all that we have.”
With regards to the boat carrying 97 people, which capsized on early Wednesday, 63 (49 males, 12 females) of the 97 were rescued and sent to the Klang or Banting Hospital, Azman said, while four more bodies; three males and a female, were recovered at the Air Hitam beach and Sungai Langat, bringing the death toll to 13 casualties.
This was as of 6pm yesterday.
The bodies of eight males and one female were found on Wednesday while the Indonesian embassy has only managed to track the family of one of the fatalities.
The fate of the remaining 22 is still unknown as 243 authorities personnel including from various agencies including the local fishermen’s associations search for them.
A villager at Kampung Kelanang, which is near where the boat capsized, said the news of the incident was “normal”.
“Of late, it is becoming common for us to hear these kind of occurrences around here,” he said.
A woman who sold drinks at the jetty said her husband had witnessed an incident where what they thought were police personnel carrying out an operation.
“My husband, who was near the jetty mending his boat, had followed a few friends after they told him they saw police boats doing something a few kilometres away from the shore,” she said.
“When he arrived, he thought he saw the police leading people from regular-looking boats into theirs. The next day, it was confirmed that illegal immigrants were detained in their attempt to enter the country.”
The survivors are being investigated under the Anti-Trafficking In-Person Act and the Immigration Act and investigations are ongoing on the syndicate’s leaders and accomplices.
