Fleeing from Sabah

Image credit: http://ohgadisitu.blogspot.com/2013/03/terkini-gambar-sniper-pengganas-kiram.html

Since my last blogpost on the Sabah intrusion, there has been nil fighting on the Lahad Datu front. 

Except for one incident where a Sulu militant was shot dead after he tried to attack the Malaysian security forces personnel with a ‘barong’ (a type of machete) during a search on a house in Kampung Simunul, Semporna on Thursday. And another was detained when he surrendered after stumbling upon Malaysian security forces in the Tanjung Batu area on the evening of March 25th.

 

Sabah police commissioner Hamza Taib announced that security forces had so far killed 68 “terrorists”. (I am puzzled with the bodycount though because my number is less four!), while arresting 121 individuals to facilitate investigation under SOSMA and 443 others under other Acts.

 

And then comes the news that the Kiram clan had disowned the eight charged with the intrusion into Sabah as Malaysians and not Filipinos. Does it matter whether they are Malaysians or Filipinos? Irrespective of which identification papers they possessed, they are staking a claim on Sabah on behalf of the Sulu Sultanate, are they not?

 

The Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council had reported that the number of Filipinos who have fled Sabah since fighting broke out in Lahad Datu between Malaysian security forces and followers of the sultanate of Sulu has reached 4,771. 

As of March 28, the NDRRMC said a total of 944 families have left Sabah for the Basulta (Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi) region and are being assisted by the government. Of the number, 2,861 persons are adults and 1,860 are children. (Even the numbers don't add up!)

 

So these people are not Malaysians then?

 

Anyway, the total can be expected to increase amid a crackdown by Malaysian authorities on both undocumented aliens and those suspected of supporting the sultanate. It will be awhile before there is an end in sight, I reckon.