Jalil Hamid, Nunukan – Indonesian officials say 35 deportees from Malaysia have died at sprawling makeshift camps in Borneo as they await the arrival of a navy vessel bringing medical help.
A crackdown on illegal immigrants in Malaysia has strained relations with the country's poorer neighbors, Indonesia and the Philippines, as reports mount of deportees dying from malnutrition and disease. Philippine and Indonesian women have reported being raped or being forced to work as sex slaves while awaiting deportation.
A senior Indonesian welfare department official said there were 17,000 illegal Indonesian workers and their families stuck in makeshift camps in Nunukan in east Kalimatan near the country's border with Malaysia.
"The latest number of deaths [in the camps] is 35," the official told Reuters. Aid workers say the death toll is nearer 70 from diseases caught from dirty water, poor sanitation and nutrition.
A Malaysian amnesty for all undocumented foreigners to leave expired on August 1. Illegal immigrants arrested after that day face caning and imprisonment.
One relief worker told Reuters this week that some mothers were selling their babies for cash in the camps, about two hours by boat from Tawau in Malaysia's Sabah state.
Of the hundreds of thousands of people that fled Peninsular Malaysia and its two states in northern Borneo, thousands of Indonesian plantation and construction workers ended up in Nunukan – camping out with no proper sanitation or protection from mosquitoes and bad weather. Volunteers now bring meals to the camps, but inhabitants say it was much worse when they first fled across the border.
"The situation now is much better than a few weeks ago," said Anita Bisanjar, 36, who worked in an oil palm plantations in Sandakan, Sabah."Before, the place stank." An Indonesian navy ship, the Tanjung Kambani, was due to arrive on Saturday, bringing a team of doctors to set up a floating hospital.
Indonesian police in Nunukan said around 25 young Indonesian girls had been forced into becoming sex workers in Tawau. "I was confined to a hotel room and had to serve up to 17 men some 15 hours a day," one of the girls, Kris, told Reuters. Kris said she ran away to Nunukan on Friday where she was placed under police protection.
Demonstrators in Manila and Jakarta have burned the Malaysian flag at protests in recent weeks. The Philippine and Indonesian governments had played down the row until Philippine President Gloria Arroyo sent a letter this week protesting against the alleged rape of a 13-year-old Filipina.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad promised to launch a full inquiry.