KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Malaysian immigration authorities have established a makeshift camp in the car park of Kuala Lumpur's airport for foreign workers waiting to be collected by their agents, a report said Sunday.
Immigration Department chief Wahid Don said that corralling the workers in the car park prevented them loitering in the main airport buildings and creating an "unpleasant" situation for other travellers.
"We can't have them running around the airport and congesting the premises," he told the Sunday Star newspaper.
The Star reported earlier that thousands of foreign workers, mostly Bangladeshis, have been forced to camp in the car park while waiting for their employers -- who sometimes took days to collect them.
Wahid said that a permanent facility was being built at the car park, to house foreign workers and handle their visas and paperwork.
One worker, Bangladeshi Kho Kan, told the newspaper that he had arrived two days ago with 24 other men who had been told they would be working in Malaysian factories.
"We have to use our own money to buy food while waiting for our agent to pick us up," he said.
An agent who came to the airport to collect 50 workers said that delays were often caused by miscommunication between agents in Malaysia and Bangladesh.
"Some agents had no idea that their workers had arrived, so they were not here to pick up the workers. If agents fail to show up within seven days after the arrival of the workers, the workers would be deported," he said.
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