ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—"They dragged all the males
outside the house, kicked and hit them," Amira Taradji said as she recounted her family's ordeal in
Sandakan that started when Malaysian security forces began cracking down on
suspected supporters of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III of Sulu.
Interviewed by phone from Patikul, Sulu, shortly after she
arrived there Friday night with about 200 other refugees, Taradji, 32, claimed
that Malaysian policemen would order Filipino men to run as fast as they could
and would then gun them down.
Among those killed that way on Monday night during what she
described as a zoning operation in a Filipino community in Sandakan was her
brother, Jumadil, Taradji said.
Taradji, originally from Calinan in Davao City, is among
some 400 people who have arrived in Sulu from such places in Sabah as Lahad
Datu, Sempornah, Tawau and Kunak since the start of the week as violence
triggered by a "homecoming" expedition to the east Malaysian state by
followers of Kiram escalated.
Officials said there are now close to a thousand refugees
from Sabah in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. Hundreds more have arrived in smaller
Philippine island near Sabah and many more Filipinos are expected to make the
sea crossing, officials said.
The Inquirer reached Taradji by phone through the help of a
Sulu local official shortly after she arrived in Patikul on a commercial vessel
from Sabah late Friday.
Taradji said the constant raid on houses by Malaysian
security forces was particularly dreadful for both Filipinos and Orang Suluk,
as Sabahans who originated from Sulu are known.
Aside from the police abuse she said she witnessed in
Sandakan, Taradji said Filipinos she encountered before leaving Sabah said they
too had witnessed Filipino men being rounded up in Tawau and Kunak.
Some of the arrested men, who tried to dissuade the police
from arresting them by waving immigration documents, were killed just the same
for trying to evade the raiders, she said.
"Some of those arrested did not see jail because they
were shot and killed," Taradji said.
Those who were jailed were not doing very well either
because Malaysian authorities were allegedly starving them to death.
"Even if you have valid immigration document, you will
not be spared. If you are lucky to reach the jail, you will die of starvation
because they will not feed you," Taradji said.
Taradji had lived in Sandakan since she was six years old
and is the holder of "Mykad," a type of identification card issued to
Malaysian citizens and permanent residents.
She said that although she and here family were Mykad
holders, they hastily abandoned their home when Malaysian policemen started
arriving Monday night.
She said she saw how those caught during the raid suffered
at the hands of Malaysian policemen.
"We sailed from Sandakan to nearby islands—from one
island to another—until we reached a small island where we took a kumpit for
the Philippines. We begged hard so they would allow us to ride one of the
kumpits," she recounted.
Carla Manlaw, 47, said it was fear of the Malaysian
policemen following stories of the abuse and killings that prompted her and
other Filipinos to sail to Bongao in Tawi-Tawi.
Manlaw and 99 others, including children and the elderly,
arrived in Philippine waters aboard two motorboats after sailing for about two
hours from Sandakan. They were intercepted and escorted by a Philippine Navy
ship until they reached Bongao late Friday.
"My employer has no problem with having a Filipino
employee. But what bothered me was the police," she said.
Manlaw said the other Filipinos who sailed with her were
afraid of "what they will do to
us."
Manlaw said when she heard that a vessel was returning to
Bongao from Sandakan, she immediately grabbed her things and boarded it.
Mayor Hussin Amin of Jolo, Sulu, said the accounts of abuses
by Malaysian policemen were so "alarming and disturbing" that the
national government should already look into them.
He said he had spoken with a lot of evacuees and the stories
were the same: Malaysian soldiers and policemen were not making any distinction
between illegal immigrants and those issued Mykad cards.
"Soldiers and policemen stormed their houses and even
those with legitimate working papers like passports and IC papers were not
spared. These documents were allegedly torn down before their eyes. Men were
told to run and were shot if they did. Those who refused were beaten black and
blue. Filipinos inside the jail were executed," Amin said as he recounted
what the evacuees told him.
"We are asking our government to investigate now.
Refugees from Sandakan and Sabah share
[the same] ordeals. If indeed what they have been telling us is true,
then Malaysian authorities were not just targeting the Kirams in Lahad
Datu," Amin said by phone late Friday.
He said for now, he tended to believe the stories told by
the fleeing Filipinos that Filipino men—Tausug especially—were being killed on
the streets and in detention centers in Malaysia.
"Our people are treated like animals there and this has
to stop because they are no longer hitting the Kirams," Amin said.
Amin said one his reasons for believing the stories was his
observation that children and women "are deeply traumatized seeing our
police personnel inspecting them."
He said that during processing of some evacuees who arrived
in Jolo this week, he saw how "some even attempted to jump off to the sea,
thinking they were still in Malaysia."
"I spoke to them and gave them assurance that they were
all home and no one will ever harm them now and the policemen securing the port
were not Malaysians but Filipinos protecting them," Amin said.
Social welfare officials, who spoke to the Inquirer on
condition of anonymity, said they anticipated that more than a thousand
Filipinos from Sabah will be arriving
within the next few days.
One official said the sheer number of the expected returnees
"will pose a problem" greater than what the 2002 deportation of
Filipinos by Malaysian authorities
caused.
That year, some 64,000 Filipinos were forced out of Sabah
due to lack of documents and feeding or relocating them proved to be a
nightmare for officials.
Amirah Lidasan of the militant group Suara Bangsamoro said
she pitied women and children who had to endure uncertainty at sea just to
escape the Sabah violence.
The waters between Sabah and Tawi-Tawi and Sulu are known
for huge waves that could engulf and capsize small vessels.
Taradji said one problem facing many Filipinos escaping the
Sabah crackdown is how to earn a living in the Philippines.
She said she managed to bring with her some money for food
and other needs for her family for a few days. But she and her husband were at
a loss as to how to feed the family after that.
"We do not even know which way is Calinan now,"
Taradji said, adding that the Philippines was now a foreign land to her and her
family after living for the past 26 years in Sabah.
Manlaw said the same thing when she spoke with the Inquirer
in Bongao.
"We have no future here, unlike in Sabah where we hade
clear jobs and livelihood," she said.
