Ambon, Maluku (Antara Bali)- The Immigration Office of Ambon, in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), will deport some 300 fishermen to their country of origin, Myanmar.
The identification of the immigrants was conducted on June 23 with the cooperation of the Embassy of Myanmar in Indonesia, Head of the Ambon Immigration office Nanang Koesdarjanto stated here on Thursday.
"The Myanmar embassy's staff came to Ambon after being contacted by the Myanmarese fishermen who required documents to return to their home country," he noted.
The embassy sent its staff to gather data from the immigrants to prepare their travel documents.
When the documents are ready, they will immediately be deported to Myanmar with the assistance of the IOM, the Ambon immigration office chief stated.
The immigrants are crew members of ships that are currently docked in Ambon.
They want to return to their country, as they are now practically jobless since their ships can no longer sail for fishing after the Indonesian government declared a moratorium on issuing licenses for foreign fishing ships in November 2014.
The number of foreign fishermen stranded on several remote eastern Indonesian islands has spiraled to four thousand, according to media reports.
Many are migrant workers abandoned by their boat captains after the government passed the moratorium, the media said quoting the IOM. (WDY)
