Basilan gov't handling deportees from Malaysia in quarantine site
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 13:15 PM Tue Mar 24, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
The deportees are now under quarantine in Sibakil Island in Basilan. Their boat was disinfected Monday. (Contributed)
COTABATO CITY --- Physicians are watching over some of the almost 200 deportees from Malaysia confined in a quarantine facility in Basilan and tagged either as persons under investigation, or under monitoring.
Reports that reached Tuesday the capitol in Cotabato City of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao stated that the provincial government of Basilan, the Western Mindanao Command and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region are now cooperating in providing the deportees health care.
The deportees were on a boat that failed to dock in Zamboanga City last week due to the coronavirus quarantine lockdown there.
The vessel carrying them was intercepted by the Police Maritime Group while at the territorial waters of the island province, sailing towards Zamboanga City.
The seafarers were immediately confined in Sibakil Island few kilometers off Lantawan town in Basilan.
Provincial officials said at least 30 of the deportees were tagged as persons under investigation for possible COVID-19 infection while 90 others were considered as persons under monitoring .
They are now receiving humanitarian support and medical intervention from the office of Basilan Gov. Jim Salliman and other cooperating agencies, among them the office of the Department of Health in Region 9 and the Bangsamoro Health Ministry.
An emergency team from the Salliman-led provincial disaster risk reduction and management council facilitated the other day an extensive disinfection of the boat that brought them from Malaysia to the Zamboanga peninsula as part of the PDRRMC’s COVID-19 containment initiative.