[Indonesia Report] Illegal immigrants escape Indonesian detention facility

Asylum seekers sit on board an Indonesian rescue boat at Merak seaport in Java, Indonesia, on August 31, 2012. The asylum seekers were rescued from the ocean after their boat sank. (Photo: AFP)

Some 20 illegal immigrants from Middle East countries again escaped from the East Java Immigration Detention Center’s temporary detention facility in Madiun, East Java, Indonesia on Friday (Sept 14).

They escaped through window, climbed a wall and then moved onto the roof of a house next to the hotel used as the immigration temporary detention center due to overcrowded, The Jakarta Globe reported.

The house owner, Bambang, whose house located behind the hotel, told he heard noises on his roof in Friday dawn.
“I initially thought it was mice but after I went outside to check, it turns out to be some foreigners. It happened around three in the morning,” Bambang said.

Kasimin, a neighbor, said he heard strange noises on his roof at around 1 a.m.
“After that there were many police officers chasing after them,” Kasimin said.

Madiun immigration officer and the police refused to give reporters information on the incident.
Most of the migrants were from Iraq, five Kuwaitis and four Iranians.
They were detained in the southern East Java district of Pacitan on Sept. 7 when they tried to cross to Australia.

Human rights activists accused the Indonesian authorities of allowing some of the detainees to flee to reduce the overcrowded in the detention centers, which are struggling with the lack of fund.

Previously, 60 asylum seekers escaped from the Madiun Immigration detention center temporary facility, then local police recaptured 55 of them in Sept 09.
23 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar escaped from a temporary shelter in Bogor in July.
Australia is now facing a massive wave of asylum seeker arriving by sea.

Australia designates Nauru and Papua New Guinea as a regional processing country under the Migration Act so potential refugees could be sent to the small state to await their visa decision.

Meidyana Rayana Intern Reporter news@theasian.asia