Why no proper Sabah refugees data
Published on: Friday, February 27, 2015
Kota Kinabalu: There is no proper record on the status of refugees in Sabah due to the absence of a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office here."However, this doesn't mean that there are no refugees in Sabah. In fact, there are a lot of refugees in Sabah compared to other places and it is difficult for us to identify their status due to the lack of documentation," said Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) lecturer, Professor Dr Kamarulzaman Askandar.According to him, it is important that the refugees are categorised based on their intentions of crossing the borders in terms of economic factors and conflict factors.
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"In Sabah, there is a mixture of both as there is no specific data to indicate their intentions for entry.There were a lot of refugees entering Sabah in the 1970s and now because of the registration process they went through, most of them have acquired permanent resident status and identity cards," he said, adding that it is one of the reasons for the existence of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) issue.Kamarulzaman also said that there are about 150,000 registered refugees in Malaysia eligible for repatriation to Third World countries.He said this in his talk entitled "Sabah and the Safety Issues in South East Asia" during the "Borders and Safety in Sabah" seminar at the university here, Thursday.
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He then elaborated on the aspect of conflict resulting in illegal crossing of the State's borders."There are three categories of conflicts. The first one would be conflict between nations. The second one would be conflict within the nation itself and finally, conflict that occurred in a country affecting other countries.
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"The entry of refugees is what I meant by the impact of what happened in one country affecting another country based on human migration," he explained. The neighbouring countries of Sabah have somehow had an impact on our State especially Southern Philippines due to its location and it always being chaotic due to the presence of conflicts. "Therefore, we must look into these conflicts closely and understand them besides listening to the story each party has to tell."We cannot just look at the surface of the matter, rather we should go indepth with it. Sabahans, based on what I have observed, are tolerant with one another but somehow, underneath, there are things that caused them to feel dissatisfied and unhappy."And if this problem is not handled, well then it will turn into a bigger problem and things will be much more complicated in the future," he said.According to him, it is also important for authorities to get approval from the people before any actions are taken because at the end of the day, people are the ones who will feel the impacts of the actions taken.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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