Seven individuals who were detained around Pos Komtek Telok Melano, Sematan failed to produce travelling documents when inspected.
KUCHING (Feb 22): Nine Indonesians, including a child and a woman, were ordered to return to their own country after they were caught by the Sarawak General Operations Force (GOF) trying to enter the state illegally in two separate locations, Tebedu and Telok Melano on Sunday.
Sarawak GOF Brigade commander SAC Mancha Ata said all of the illegal foreigners aged between 8 years-old up to 40-years-old were detained during Ops Benteng in the two locations.
He explained further that for the first case involving seven individuals, including a woman, were detained around Pos Komtek Telok Melano, Sematan during the patrol conducted between 4.40pm to 5.40pm.
“While patrolling, our PGA personnel found six men and a woman believed to be Indonesian citizens and after an inspection was done on all of them found that all the individuals failed to show valid travel documents.
“All the individuals were then accompanied by Komtek personnel to return to their country of origin at the Malaysia-Indonesia border at Telok Melano, Sematan,” he said in a statement today.
Meanwhile, the second case Mancha said, two individuals, including an eight-year-old Indonesian child, were detained around 10.45 am at Kilometer 12 at Kampung Tema Saan, Serian.
He said, both individuals were detained while inspections were done on a van which was boarded by 10 individuals.
Out from the total that were checked, two were found to have their travelling documents expired,” he said.
According to him, both individuals were asked to turn back to their country of origin through the Sarawak Customs, Immigration, Quarantine (CIQS) Complex in Tebedu.
Following that he said, all the nine foreigners were detained under Section 6(1) of the Immigration Act 1959 (Act 155) and the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases 1988 (Act 342).