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Six illegal immigrants escape detention in East Kalimantan
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Ali Agha Hamzah (in the wheelchair) is being escorted into an ambulance at the Balikpapan detention center on Friday. Hamzah is one of six illegal immigrants who fled the detention center on Friday morning. (Tribun Kaltim/-)
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ix inmates held in the Lamaru immigration detention center in East Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, escaped from the facility on Friday morning.
The inmates are illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, identified as Reza Panahi, Morteza Haidar, Arif Feroghi, Muhammad Hadi Haidari, Mohamad Jawad Esani and Ali Agha Hamzah.
The six reportedly tied together bedsheets to use as a rope to climb the six-meter-high wall, and climbed over the barbed wire.
Nia Viranita, a detention center official, conceded that security at the complex was quite relaxed as its inmates were not criminal suspects.
"We only deploy one guard to supervise hundreds of inmates inside the center and another assigned at the front gate," Nia said as quoted by Tribun Kaltim.
The 140-capacity center currently houses 194 inmates, all male.
Nia said the facility is not a prison, but a transit house, adding that authorities are still discussing plans to build a new shelter for the immigrants to ease overcapacity issues.
Later that same day, surrounding residents found one of the escaped inmates, Ali Agha Hamzah, and escorted him back to the center. (dmr)
