PETALING JAYA: All 113 refugees, including 110 Rohingya, have left the Kuala Lumpur police contingent headquarters after being placed under temporary police supervision overnight.
Brickfields OCPD Asst Comm Hoo Chang Hook said the group departed at about 4pm on Tuesday (July 28) to a location arranged by a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
"At around 4pm, all 113 refugees left the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters for a destination arranged by the NGO," he said when contacted on Tuesday.
The refugees are being assisted by Ampang-based NGO Kaladan.
The group includes refugees aged between one month and 60 years old.
Earlier, Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said the refugees would not be placed in Immigration detention depots as they possess valid United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) documents.
He said Immigration detention depots are meant for foreign nationals without valid travel or identification documents, while UNHCR cardholders are allowed to remain in Malaysia on humanitarian grounds, subject to compliance with Malaysian laws.
Before leaving the police headquarters, the refugees had been temporarily accommodated at Dataran Wira within the Kuala Lumpur police contingent headquarters while awaiting arrangements for their next placement.
On Monday (July 27), hundreds of Rohingya refugees gathered outside the UNHCR office in Jalan Bukit Petaling after being displaced from their settlement in Penang.
Kuala Lumpur police chief Comm Datuk Fadil Marsus said the group was later transferred to the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters at about 8.50pm with the assistance of UNHCR representatives, as the area outside the UNHCR office could not be used as a temporary settlement.
The group comprised 110 Rohingya refugees, one Iraqi man, one Somali woman and one Indonesian woman married to a Rohingya refugee.
Police and UNHCR officers also carried out documentation checks, which confirmed that all the Rohingya refugees possessed valid UNHCR documents.
