KOTA KINABALU: Sabah will take comprehensive action to assist the nomadic sea Pala’u community in accordance with the United Nations convention to protect them.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor (pic) said this community, which travels through the Sulawesi and Sulu seas that border three countries - Malaysia mostly at Sabah’s east coast, the Southern Philippines and Indonesia’s Sulawesi,are considered stateless.
“They are different from the illegal immigrants because the latter can be sent back to their countries of origin. But the Pala’u are nomads and stateless.
“Under international law, wherever the Pala’u is present, the country must take care of them,” he told reporters at the 2024 Maahad Tahfiz Sulaimaniyyah Malaysia Timur graduation ceremony, here, on Saturday (July 6).
Hajiji added that the state has the biometric data of the estimated 27,000 Pala’us across the state.
Issues concerning the Pala’us were discussed at the recent State Security Council meeting amid international concerns over an incident where they were chased out from a state marine park in Semporna.
They were asked to go to another island outside the marine park area.
At the State Security Council meeting last Thursday (July 4), he told heads of departments and government agencies to solve the issue swiftly and efficiently.
“We do not want issues to grow bigger and affect the state and country’s image globally,” Hajiji said.
The Pala’u community, which has for generations moved between islands in the Sulu Sea and Sulawesi Sea, had over the years settled on land while others continue their seafaring life with temporarily built homes on the waters around various islands off Semporna.
