Eight drown, 20 missing
Only 34 of 62 Indonesians were rescued after the boat ferrying them overturned due to strong waves.
JOHOR BARU: They paid between RM500 to RM1,200 for a ride back to their homeland in a fibre glass boat, but they never made it to shore.
When their boat was about a kilometre away from Pantai Batu Layar near here, it suffered engine trouble, causing it to overturn due to strong waves at about 10pm on Saturday.
Of the 62 on board, only 34 were rescued. Eight of them have been confirmed drowned, including a seven-month pregnant woman, while another 20 are still missing.
It was a double tragedy for one of the survivors identified as Moses Dacosta, 27, as he not only lost his wife, but also his unborn baby in the incident.
Relating his ordeal, Dacosta said his wife was sitting on his lap when the boat overturned.
“I could not save her although she was sitting on my lap at the time of the incident,” he said tearfully.
He said they were heading to their village in Kupang, at the borders of Timor Leste to welcome the birth of their first child.
“It all seemed like a horrible nightmare,” he told reporters when met at the state Immigration Department headquarters here yesterday.
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency Southern Region operations deputy director Capt Saiful Lizan Ibrahim said that the group was believed to be sneaking out of the country via a prohibited route in the fibre glass boat between 8pm to 9pm on Saturday.
He said a search and rescue operations was immediately launched and 34 survivors were plucked from the sea.
He said the survivors had been sent to the state Immigration Department, adding that the operation was ongoing to locate 20 others who were still listed as “lost at sea”.
Johor Immigration Department director Rohaizi Ibrahim said initial investigations revealed that the group was attempting to leave the country via a non-gazetted route back to their country.
The survivors, aged between 25 and 41, were handed over to the department around 7am yesterday for further investigations and action.
Checks also showed that only three of the 34 who survived had valid travel documents while one had expired documents, he added.
Rohaizi also said that the passengers were believed to have paid the skipper between RM500 and RM1,200 each for the ride.
“We will refer to the Indonesian Consulate in Johor Baru to process the documentation for the next course of action – including deportation,” he said.
He added that the case was being investigated under Section 5 of the Immigration Act as well as under the Anti-Trafficking In Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007.