800 deportees arrive in Zamboanga from Sabah
PAGADIAN CITY, ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR, Philippines — Some 800 deportees from Sabah, Malaysia, arrived in Zamboanga City on Friday night aboard passenger vessel MV Antonia 1, the Zamboanga Peninsula regional field office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said on Saturday.
Of the 800 deportees, 589 are adult males, 89 are adult females, 64 are male children and 58 are female children, the agency said, adding that all children are below 12 years old.
Report from Sabah
The deportees are due to be transferred to the Processing Center for Displaced Persons run by the DSWD in Zamboanga City for profiling, social welfare assessment, and determination of appropriate interventions and assistance.
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According to DSWD, the deportees came from three detention centers in Sandakan, Papar and Tawau in Sabah.
Malaysian media, however, had reported the deportees were sent home on Thursday, boarding a passenger vessel at Sandakan.
READ: Bongbong Marcos says Sabah issue discussed in Malaysia, focusing on common grounds
A news report said Sabah authorities planned six more repatriation batches at 800 people each to prevent overcrowding at its immigration detention depots. It also quoted Sabah Immigration director Datuk Sh Sitti Saleha Habib Yussof as saying that the youngest deportee is 16-day-old and the oldest 83, “with the children accompanied by their parents or guardians.”
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Friday’s arrivals in Zamboanga City brought to 1,069 the total number of deportees last week.
The Sabah Immigration Department meanwhile has intensified its crackdown on undocumented migrants. It has repatriated 7,490 detainees of various nationalities, 5,357 of them Filipinos. Others are Indonesians, Pakistanis, Chinese and Vietnamese.
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Sitti Saleha told Malaysian media that they planned to deport the remaining Filipinos from the immigration detention depots within a month. /cb
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