TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - At least two Indonesians were dead and 19 others have gone missing after they plunged into the sea as their boat was caught by Malaysia’s maritime security forces last Sunday night. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (APMM) has been looking for the missing victims since yesterday.
Djudjur Hutagalung, spokesman for the Consulate General of Republic of Indonesia (KJRI) in Johor Baru, said the boat carried Indonesian workers that wanted to spend Ramadhan in their hometown. The boat was then caught during APMM’s operation and 59 illegal immigrants have been detained from the boat that is often called “pancung”.
“The APMM caught a boat that wanted to go to Indonesia on July 13 at 23.30 p.m.,” Djudjur told Tempo yesterday.
Those 59 people are still being detained for questioning and the KJRI has coordinated with authorities. “The process is two weeks at the earliest. It can take longer as Lebaran is approaching,” said Djudjur. The two dead victims are still in identification process by the police.
The APMM with the Malaysian Departments of Fire and Rescue, Civil Defense and Marine have deployed five ships to look for the missing 19 people in sea area of six square nautical miles between Tanjung Pelepas and Tanjung Piai. The Malaysian authorities said the boat was overloaded and sank.
The area is a “traditional route” where immigrants usually travel through using a boat pancung and boat-sinking incidents often happen such as incident on June 15 that killed 36 people and the previous August when 44 people were killed or missing.
Djudjur said he was curious why many Indonesians use boat pancung even though some of them have official documents. He said the tariff for boat pancung is around 1,000 Malaysian ringgit while using planes only costs around 400-600 ringgit for the cheap airlines. “It is even cheaper using ferry from or to Batam, only 80 ringgit, and from there, people can take other transportation to any cities,” he said.
NATALIA SANTI
