"At first, they asked to be permitted to go outside because they said it was too hot inside their rooms. But once outside, 10 of them ran away after climbing over a wall behind the quarantine house," a police officer, who asked for anonymity said here Friday.
Two of the escapees were rearrested around 500 meters from the quarantine house.
Several policemen in plain clothes are now looking for the eight remaining escapees who managed to disappear.
Some 33 illegal immigrants from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan were rescued by local fishermen when their boat sank in the Makassar Strait recently.
However, the fishermen`s boat ran out of fuel, and the immigrants were later picked up by MV Selvi Utama sailing from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Province to Samarinda on Thursday (June 10).
In Samarinda, the aliens who seemed to be on their way to Australia, were accommodated at the quarantine house, where 10 of them later managed to escape.
(Uu.F001/HAJM)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
