TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - After eight Middle Eastern illegal immigrants were captured on the waters of Samalona Island last Monday, the Makassar Immigration officers and the police are now pursuing a suspect who was reported to be their agent. 'Those illegal immigrants were arranged by an organized syndicate," said M. Bakri, the Makassar Class I Immigration Office Monitoring and Law Enforcement Division Chief, yesterday.
Bakri said that based on the immigrants' testimonies, the agents communicated via telephone. The immigrants are still being investigated and will be sent to the Bollangi Immigration Detention Center, Gowa Regency, while waiting to be deported.
They claimed that they were trying to go to Australia to seek political asylum and had a letter from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They departed from their home country through Malaysia, continuing on to Sumatra and Java by motorboat.
According to Bakri, each immigrant paid the agents more than Rp 100 million, not including living costs. They were captured by Indonesian Naval Base VI patrol boats. First Admiral Ari Soedewo, the base commander, said that the immigrants were on a boat not far from the shore. They were waiting for the agent to arrange their next destination. "But we did not find the person they mentioned as their agent," Ari said.
He said that the Navy was currently focused on guarding the areas that have became the crossover route for illegal immigrants. The Makassar Strait is one of those areas because of its proximity to Australia. Ari is hopeful that the authorities canuncover the smuggling activities and arrest the perpetrators. "We need to catch them red-handed, and hand them over to the authorized agency handling it," he said.
AAN PRANATA
