The Malaysian Insight

E-HAILING driver Mohd Khairul Rahim will take customers anywhere in Lahad Datu except Kg Puyut, the infamous water village on the edge of the town facing the bay.

The 35-year old said he and other Grab drivers are truly afraid of the area, where villagers have a notorious reputation.

Despite raid after raid by the authorities and despite being monitored by the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZone), the squatter colony remains much feared by town folk.

“A fellow Grab driver was robbed of his handphone and money here. This is why all of us e-hailing drivers will never entertain requests to Kg Puyut,” Khairul said.

“It is where you get syabu. It is where you get extorted. Kg Puyut is known as a drug den and hotbed for crimes,” Khairul told The Malaysian Insight.

There are more than 6,000 squatters in the water village that gained its notoriety in the 1980s when the number of illegal immigrants to Sabah began to soar.

After the Lahad Datu intrusion in March 2013 by Sulu militants from the southern Philippines, who claimed the area, Kg Puyut along with many other villages were placed under the ESSZone, where a dawn-to-dusk curfew is imposed.

A mosque marks the entrance to the water village, where hundreds of stilt-wooden houses are linked together by a rickety wooden bridge, spreading out to the sea of Lahad Datu’s Darvel Bay.  

Khairul said other villages in Lahad Datu, such as Kg Panji and Kg Bakau, were tamer following enforcement action to weed out illegal immigrants and drug abuse and possible insurgents.

“I’m not sure how, despite the raids, Kg Puyut still remains a black area,” Khairul said.

There was a time the Eastern Sabah Security (ESSCom) wanted to demolish Kg Puyut but was stopped by a local politician “protecting” the villagers, according to a Kg Panji resident, who only wanted to be known as Haji Raman.

“It’s an open secret that some of these folks who are mostly illegal immigrants have protection from higher-ups, and their homes are not destroyed during raids,” Raman said.

A Kg Puyut resident, a Bajau man named Djailani Hussin, who said he is now Malaysian, admits his village can be an unwelcoming place, especially at night. 

Even he, a resident since 1992 when he first arrived from the southern Philippines, still sees new arrivals.

Is ESSCom effective?

ESSCom is now due for a revamp to cut costs. It is still deemed necessary by the new Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador despite initial plans to scrap it.

Hamid visited the command centre recently and is looking at ways to improve operations.

Besides Lahad Datu, the ESSZone also covers Kudat, Kota Marudu, Pitas, Beluran, Sandakan, Kinabatangan, Kunak, Semporna and Tawau – all on Sabah’s eastern coast that is susceptible to activity from the southern Philippines.

ESSCom was established to stop kidnappings and piracy in the region but a few kidnappings by southern Philippines militants still occurred in years since the 2013 intrusion.

Locals who lived under the ESSCom curfew said many are still fearful despite the presence of security forces and feel the root causes of the crime and drug abuse prevalent in squatter colonies are not being dealt with.

The root causes are difficult to resolve, as they are tied to illegal immigration and poverty.

In Semporna, the majority of locals avoid going near Kg Bangau-Bangau, which is populated mostly by Filipino migrants of the Bajau and Suluk ethnic groups.

Malaysian Rohani Abu Bakar, who lives in Semporna but works in Kg Bangau-Bangau, said the locals’ fear of the squatter colony has made the village a safe place for illegal immigrants.

“It is difficult to tell the local Bajau and Suluk and the illegal immigrants apart as they have the same language and facial features,” said the 45-year-old.

“Most of them are also related to one another, which is why they are willing to harbour their illegal immigrant family members.”

Rohani also believes drugs pushing and crime is rife in Bangau-Bangau because its population are mainly employed as low-wage workers in construction, fishermen or fishmongers, drivers of illegal taxis and odd-job workers.

Employers take advantage of their situation and their lack of paper documentation. They are usually paid below the national minimum wage of RM1,100.

“So drugs and crime become a source of income for the villagers,” she said, adding that many residents stole electricity from others and living conditions in Bangau-Bangau are unsanitary with the village strewn with rubbish.

Tawau resident, Sulaiman Hasri wondered why even with ESSCom’s presence, locals still feel fearful and restricted.

“If you live near the squatter areas, you feel like danger is lurking everywhere.

“This is a very unhealthy trend and ESSCom should resolve the public’s fear,” he said. 

Djailani, the tailor from Lahad Datu’s Kg Puyut, said illegal entries remained hard to control, as Sabah’s 1,400 km-long eastern coast from Kudat to Tawau is difficult to patrol.

There are countless “hiding spots” to enter along the coastline, he said.

“Even if Sabah repatriates all those who entered illegally back to the Philippines, they could still come back without being caught by the authorities.” – June 8, 2019.