Cambodian embassy lacks funds to send workers back from Malaysia

PETALING JAYA: The Cambodian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur is unable to send its citizens home as more of them are seeking support and refuge amid a crackdown on illegal migrant workers in Malaysia.
It has appealed for help from NGOS in Malaysia to repatriate the workers, The Cambodian Daily reported today.
“We can’t afford the whole cost. It is a lot, like airfare, food and other local transportation costs,” Nou Bunnara, the embassy’s councilor for labour affairs, was quoted by the news portal as saying.
“So we are looking to work with NGOs to support us in order to repatriate the workers. It is chaotic because they don’t even have any money to support themselves.”
The portal reported Cambodia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry as saying he did not know how much money was needed to repatriate the Cambodians currently sheltered at the embassy. He reportedly declined to discuss further details, saying he did not have more information.
About 30 Cambodian nationals had been seeking refuge at the embassy, while another 79 were arrested in Malaysia this month in the crackdown.
Bunnara said the Malaysian government had told the embassy it was expediting investigations, and it would be entirely up to Malaysia whether the arrested workers would be deported or sent to court.
Adrian Pereira, executive director for Malaysian rights organisation North South Initiative, said his NGO and its network had been working with the Cambodian Embassy and were helping finance some Cambodians’ trips home.
Some workers have been saved from trafficking, as well as arrest and detention, he said.
“There was an undocumented Cambodian lady who just gave birth, so Immigration was trying to detain her (at the hospital) … but we managed to negotiate for her a safe passage home,” the news portal quoted him as saying
He added that Malaysian hospitals are required to alert the Immigration Department when undocumented migrants receive treatment.
Joseph Paul, programme officer at Tenaganita, said he had been in contact with four Cambodian migrant workers this month, but had yet to locate two of them.
“What happens is, they get our number and call us, and quite often they don’t know where they are,” he said. “We have to find out where they are.”