127 more Filipinos deported from Sabah

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – More than a hundred more deportees from Sabah arrived on Tuesday in Bongao town in Tawi-Tawi,  officials announced Friday.

Thousands of undocumented Filipinos, majority of them from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, have been deported by the Malaysian government in the past two years as part of its crackdown on illegal aliens in the mineral-rich Sabah island state.

Lawyer Laisa Alamia, ARMM's regional executive secretary, said the latest batch of 127 deportees to set foot in Bongao have all been fed and examined for ailments by combined relief workers of the regional government and the office of Tawi-Tawi Gov. Nurbert Sahali.

Alamia said 90 of the deportees were men, while the 21 others were women.

“There were 16 children from among them,” Alamia said.

Alamia said the deportees have all been provided with hygiene kits by workers of the ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance Team (HEART).

Alamia said 26 deportees have been turned over by the HEART to the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Region 9 in Zamboanga City.

“The rest had originally come from surrounding ARMM island municipalities,” Alamia said.