By NNN-Antara,
Pekanbaru (Indonesia) : Police have captured four out of 11 Afghan illegal immigrants who ran away from an immigration detention center here on Monday night.
“This is the second time illegal immigrants have escaped from the detention center this year. In June 28, some 37 illegal immigrants from Afghanistan also ran away from this place,” the center`s chief, Yanizur, said here on Tuesday.
Part of the absconding Afghans were named Muhamad Zia, Muhammad Ali, Jalil, Ghulam Husein, Muhammad Raja, Abdul Ali, Ghani, Ali Esmaili, Asif, Sultan and Naseem.
Fortunately, Yanizur said, the police captured four of them on Tuesday. A platoon of local police was now stlll pursuing the rest of the group.
According to Yanizur, most of the immigrants at the Pekanbaru immigration detention center had expressed their willingness to return to their home country. However, the process of sending them back home through the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) proved to take a long time.
“This condition has made these immigrants feel uncomfortable and this prompted them to run away ,” he said.
According to the most recent data at Pekanbaru`s immigration office, 40 immigrants from Afghanistan had been sent home last July 27, 2009. and Pekanbaru`s immigration detention center was now only holding 41 illegal immigrants.
In the past 18 months, hundreds of asylum seekers from Afghanistan came to Indonesia as a place of transit on their to Australia. The asylum seekers hoped to lead a better life there.
But for many of them, the journey stopped in Indonesia which has yet to sign the international convention on refugees and therefore refused to give them asylum.