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Survivors were found at a beach in Tanjung Balau, in the southeastern Malaysian state of Johor, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said.
“We would like to advise people, especially the undocumented migrants … to use valid routes to prevent such incidents from recurring,” Simon Templer Lo Ak Tusa, maritime operations deputy director in Johor, Malaysia, told Reuters.
Videos filmed at the site showed clothes, wallets and other personal items strewn along the beach.
Deadly accidents involving overloaded boats carrying migrant workers has become routine in the waters between Indonesia and Malaysia.
In November 2016, more than half of 101 passengers died on a boat after hitting a reef near the Indonesian island of Batam. Officials said that the boat was holding double the permitted number of passengers.
In January 2017, a boat carrying 40 people from Indonesia to Malaysia sank, and maritime authorities blamed the accident on a combination of rough waters and overcrowding.
Anis Hidayah of nongovernmental organization Migrant CARE told Reuters that over 100,000 Indonesians travel illegally to Malaysia for work each year. In Malaysia, many undocumented migrants find work in construction and domestic work, or on plantations and in factories, the outlet reported.
“They travel to Malaysia by boat, and there are so many accidents because they depart at night and arrive early in the morning,” Hidayah said.
The Johor maritime operations deputy director said that investigations will be conducted to find the “syndicate mastermind” behind boat routes between the countries, reported Bernama.
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