800 Pinoy deportees arrive in Zamboanga

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — The first batch of 800 Filipinos deported for illegal entry in Malaysia arrived Friday night here, authorities said.

The 800 were among 10,000 Filipinos to be repatriated from Malaysia. They were arrested for illegal entry and detained at facilities in Sandakan, Papar and Tawau.

The batch consisted of 589 men, 89 women and 122 children who are all below 12 years old.

According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, they were immediately given assistance and transported to the DSWD Processing Center for Displaced Persons.

Each of the deportees was provided with meals and assessed to determine needs and the appropriate intervention to be given.

Also helping in giving assistance to the 800 were personnel from the International Organization for Migration, Philippine Red Cross, Action Against Hunger, City Engineer’s Office, Office of the City Environment and Natural Resources, Office of Civil Defense, Department of Health, Philippine Coast Guard, Philippine Air Force, Philippine National Police, City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office and the city government.

 The DSWD said about 400 of the returning Filipinos are not natives of Zamboanga and would be sent to their respective places of origin in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The repatriation of the remaining Filipinos in Malaysia will be done in six batches and will be completed in December.