"We are coordinating with Malaysia's related agencies, including the immigration office," the embassy's spokesperson, Yoshi Iskandar, said here on Wednesday.
Malaysian immigration officers raided two restaurants in Putrajaya, Malaysia at 3 p.m. local time on Tuesday to search for undocumented foreign migrant workers.
The two restaurants are located in the neighborhood of Kampong Abu Bakar Baginda and Presint 11 in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya.
The raids resulted in the arrest of 29 foreign migrant workers, aged between 21 and 55 years, according to reports in Malaysia.
The detainees comprised 21 Indonesians, seven Indians, and one Myanmar citizen. The Indonesian detainees included 10 men and 11 women.
They all underwent swab testing before being sent to the Malaysian immigration's detention house in Lenggeng, Seremban district, Negeri Sembilan.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), "some 1.98 million regular migrant workers were employed in Malaysia by September 2019".
Over the past few years, the Malaysian government has repeatedly repatriated undocumented migrant workers to their countries of origin.
ANTARA has earlier reported that Malaysia repatriated at least 4,800 undocumented Indonesian migrant workers last year in the midst of its COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
Prior to their repatriation, the Indonesian workers had been housed at several immigration detention houses in the neighboring country.
The first phase of repatriation was conducted on June 6, 2020 and involved 2,189 undocumented Indonesian migrant workers staying in several immigration detention centers in the Malaysian Peninsula and Sarawak as well as 672 others in Sabah.
The first batch of 450 undocumented migrant workers were flown back to Indonesia through Jakarta, Medan, and Surabaya on June 6, 2020, while 445 others returned through those three Indonesian cities on June 10, 2020.
The repatriation of 1,294 undocumented migrant workers to Medan was conducted by sea on June 22, 2020.
Like several other countries across the globe, Malaysia has been striving to flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases and to deal with the socio-economic impact of the virus that initially struck the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019.
The Malaysian government has enforced a movement control order (MCO) to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. (INE)
Related news: Malaysia deports another 160 Indonesian migrant workers
Related news: Indonesian embassy in Malaysia repatriates 56 migrant workers
EDITED BY INE
Translator: Agus S, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2021
