THE Kg Kuala Koh death toll is at least 15, not three, says charity Sahabat Jariah, which helps the Orang Asli in the village near Gua Musang, Kelantan.

Charity president Johan Halid insists there have been more deaths from allegedly contaminated water than those reported to the police, claiming that these people have died since the beginning of Ramadhan.

“It was reported a few days ago that two have died and today another man has died in hospital but the number of deaths is actually 15,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“Their deaths were not reported to the police. They do not bother to do so because if they do, they need to walk for miles and hours from the village to the police station.

“So they buried their dead in the forest without reporting it,” Johan said in response to police and state health department statements today that the latest death toll was only three people.

State officials have so far attributed the deaths to lung infection or pneumonia.

The Orang Asli, who are from the Batek tribe, however, claim that their people are suffering a “mysterious disease”.

They have blamed it on polluted water sources, allegedly contaminated by chemical run-off from mining operations and plantations nearby.

According to the state health department, there are 29 Orang Asli being treated for respiratory complications at nearby hospitals in Gua Musang and Kuala Krai, and as outpatients at health clinics.

Johan said the Orang Asli at Kuala Koh have also been suffering from malnutrition as a result of deforestation for commercial use.

Many of the villagers are vulnerable to illness due to a lack of food, which they used to hunt and gather from the surrounding forests.

“The Batek people in Gua Musang have no food to eat because the forest has been given over to companies” to cut down for commerce.

“The women in the village are very thin, the children are malnourished, the men who go into the jungle have to hunt for food for days.

“If they come back without food, their whole family has nothing to eat.”

He said the clean water supply had been a problem for the village for a decade.

“This is not an overnight incident. It is a continuous tragedy for the past 10 years due to open plantation (cultivating) in the state.

“The Orang Asli have no clean water and they depend on the river, which is already contaminated with dangerous chemicals from fertilisers,” Johan said.

“The Kelantan state government do not care about the Orang Asli.” – June 9, 2019.