SARAWAK immigration officers, particularly those on duty along the Kalimantan border, have been ordered to be on the lookout for four Sarawakians who have yet to return after attending a religious gathering in Gowa, Indonesia.

The army have also been ordered to plug illegal border crossings to prevent the four, all males, from trying to sneak home, Deputy Chief Minister James Masing said today.

“We know who they are. We just don’t want them to sneak in, avoiding health screenings,” he told reporters after joining Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg in a press conference to announce the latest measures the state are taking to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Masing said the four men left the state on Monday, just before Putrajaya announced the two-week travel ban over the Covid-19 that came into force on Wednesday.

“(That’s why) we could not stop them (from travelling) because the order had not come out when they left the country,” the deputy chief minister said.

“We believe they’re still somewhere in Indonesia, wandering around.”

Masing said there is nothing to stop the men from returning but they would be taken into custody and made to undergo screening and quarantine.

The World Ijtima Asia Zone 2020 in Gowa was cancelled by the authorities to prevent further spread of the coronavirus amid a spike in cases in Indonesia.

It was estimated that nearly 9,000 Muslims from all over the world, including 83 from Malaysia, were there for the four-day gathering at a boarding school in rural south Sulawesi.

It was organised by a Muslim missionary movement, Jamaat Tabligh – the same movement that organised a similar event in Sri Petaling some three weeks ago that has been linked to most of the infections in Malaysia.

It was estimated some 600 from Sarawak attended the gathering at the Sri Petaling mosque.

The state authorities have reason to fear as most of the Sarawakians who attended the Sri Petaling gathering are evading health screenings.

To date, Sarawak has only screened 54 of them. – March 21, 2020.