“It’s easy to enter and leave Nusakambangan to fetch clean water. There’s no problem because our village is connected with Nusakambangan,” said Tiyo, a resident of Ujung Alang village, Kampung Laut district, Cilacap, Central Java, on Monday.

Tiyo said nearly all the villagers, especially men, had no trouble entering and leaving Nusakambangan Island, a prison island inhabited by around 1,000 convicts.

It is home to a number of penitentiaries, including a maximum security prison.

Ujung Alang, with a population of 2,000, is one of four villages in Kampung Laut district, which is close to Nusakambangan Island.

Almost 90 percent of the 16,000 inhabitants of Kampung Laut are migrants from Central Java and eastern parts of West Java.     

Kampung Laut is an isolated district in Cilacap regency. Cruising along the Segara Anakan lagoon from the Cilacap coast, it can be reached in two hours by boat.

Kampung Laut (the name means Sea Village in Indonesian) is an island settlement located close to Nusakambangan, with the nearest village being Ujung Alang. The other villages are Ujung Gagak, Panikel and Klaces.

“We fetch drinking water everyday from the caves in Nusakambangan. We only need 10 minutes to reach Nusakambangan by boat. Children are also frequently go there,” Tiyo told The Jakarta Post.

According to Tiyo, security personnel guarding the supposedly high-security prison island
were aware of the villagers’ movements from Kampung Laut to Nusakambangan.

“They know of our presence very well. We are also often asked for help whenever there is a prison break,” said Tiyo, adding his village was often part of the fugitives’ escape route.

“Fugitives often hide here, but they are often caught. Authorities from Nusakambangan usually provide us information whenever there is an escaped convict. We are immediately on the lookout, especially for the presence of outsiders in our village,” Tiyo said.

Nusakambangan currently houses 50 death-row inmates.

The island consists of six separate and distant prisons: Batu, Kembang Kuning, Pasir Putih, Permisan, Besi Enam and Narkotik prisons.

The island is supposedly tightly guarded by joint forces personnel because of it’s status as the
highest security prison island in the country.

The Bali bombing trio of Imam Samudra, Mukhlas and Amrozi were imprisoned in one of the prisons and faced a firing squad on the island last year. Bob Hasan and Tommy Soeharto, former president Soeharto’s confidant and youngest son, respectively, have also served time on Nusakambangan.

However, the open and easy access by boat to and from Nusakambangan in a matter of minutes
from a population center is a gnawing issue.

“To us, Nusakambangan is like our own home. We depend on it for our water supply as well as
firewood,” Sahad, from Ujung Alang, said.

Kampung Laut district head Hadiman said Kampung Laut had been appointed district capital 10 years earlier.

“Kampung Laut has the potential to be developed into a tourist resort. We are waiting for investors to do business here,” Hadiman said.

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