KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 247 foreigners died while being detained at Immigration depots over a period of 18 months with more than half of the cases occurring in Sabah, says the Home Ministry.
"For the period between 2021 and July 12, 2022, there were 247 deaths involving 217 men, 26 women and four boys.
"Of this total, 154 were Indonesians and Filipinos who died at Immigration depots in Sabah," the ministry said in a written reply to Ramkarpal Singh (PH-Bukit Gelugor) in Dewan Rakyat on Monday (Aug 1).
Ramkarpal wanted to know steps taken to overcome shortcomings at the Immigration depots following the recent release of a report by the Sovereign Migrant Workers Coalition (KBMB) and Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) on the matter.
The ministry denied the KBMB report saying it was inaccurate with regard to its statistics on deaths while in detention in Immigration depots in Sabah.
"The Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta had issued a media statement on June 28, 2022, to explain the statistics after the Sabah Immigration Department carried out a cross check with the Indonesian consulates in Kota Kinabalu and Tawau,” it added.
The KBMB, a group of Indonesian non-governmental organisations, reported that the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta recorded 149 Indonesians had died in five detention centres in Sabah over a period of 18 months between 2021 and 2022.
Meanwhile, the Home Ministry also said that as of July 12 this year, there were 17,703 foreigners detained at Immigration depots nationwide.
It said 12,722 were men, 3,217 women, 996 boys and 768 girls.
The ministry added that Filipinos were the highest number of detainees with 7,022 followed by Indonesians (4,625) and Myanmar nationals (1,390).
The ministry also clarified that there were a total of 7,369 detainees in four Immigration depots in Sabah.
They include 5,478 males, 1,129 females, 447 boys and 315 girls.
In June, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin was reported to have said that the deaths were unfortunate and inevitable and anyone can die anywhere and at any time.
