Mounting Concerns For Pregnant Woman In Malaysian Detention Camp

07 March 2010: Concerns have grown for a detained pregnant woman who is expecting her baby around the middle of this month in Lenggeng Detention Camp in Malaysia.

The 24-year-old Chin woman, Thla Tin Sui, has been detained in the Malaysian camp after she was arrested together with her husband in their apartment during a night raid by the Malaysian Immigration at 2am on 1 August 2009.

“We haven’t got any update on our sister’s situation. She is still detained and we believe that she will have to give birth in the detention camp. The only recent update we have got is that the detainees are suffering so much as the camp is so crowded,” Ram Nun Cung of Chin Refugee Committee told Chinland Guardian.

Her husband, Tial Kio, was quoted by VOCR (Voice of Chin Refugees) as saying that the baby is due this month and that he is so much worried his wife would not have enough energy and not be fit to have a baby when the time comes.

Parts of her body have been badly swollen as a result of malnutrition and the squalid conditions at the detention camp and only God can help her in this difficult situation, he continued.

One of the unidentified web users said in response to the news by VOCR: “Why could Malaysian authority not have concern over the pregnant refugee woman? Giving birth in the detention camp is inhumane. Why didn’t they release her so that she can have a safe and respectable maternity in the hospital? What is the UNHCR doing too?”

There has been a series of reports that reveal some serious corruption cases among the Malaysian police in dealing with illegal immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Malaysia.

According to a group of newly released detainees, blankets which are meant to be given for free of charge in the camp were sold to the detainees for 30 Malaysian Ringgits by the camp guards.

Soon after their arrest as undocumented refugees in August 2009, Thla Tin Sui and her husband were separated and kept in different detention camps. Her husband, who was given one-month imprisonment and two strokes of the cane by the Kajang court, was transferred to Lenggeng camp. He was then released by the help of Kuala Lumpur-based UNHCR after staying with his wife in the camp for two months.

Thla Tin Sui has not been recognised as a refugee from Burma while her husband, Tial Kio, has received a UNHCR card since his release.

Van Biak Thang
[email protected]
Chinland Guardian