About 1,000 Filipinos have been deported from Sabah after the biggest crackdown on illegal immigrants in decades, reports said today. They were given one-way tickets and put on a ferry Tuesday bound for Zamboanga city in the southern Philippines from Sandakan town in Sabah.

The New Straits Times said the latest deportations brought the total number of Filipino illegals deported from Sabah since early this year to 4,477.

The Filipinos were among 3,080 people held in detention camps in Sabah since a sweep against illegal immigrants was launched last week, Sabah police said.

Police had demolished a total of 4,254 squatter houses in the first week of their operation focusing on 12 districts in Sabah and the international offshore financial island of Labuan.

Three-hour fire

The daily also said a pre-dawn fire Tuesday in Labuan ravaged the largest immigrant squatter colony on the island, leaving more than 5,000 people homeless.

Some 1,000 wooden houses were gutted in the three-hour fire, but no casualties were reported.

Police said they were investigating the cause of the fire, including suspected arson, as the squatters had received eviction notices several months ago and water and electricity supplies were cut recently.

Police have said the Sabah crackdown is also aimed at weeding out armed militant groups, especially from the Philippines, which they said were trying to set up bases in the state's squatter colonies.

The action in Sabah is in line with a tougher approach throughout Malaysia, which is home to 750,000 legal foreign workers and hundreds of thousands of mainly Indonesian illegal immigrants.

The government has said it aims to deport about 10,000 Indonesian illegal immigrants every month.

While Malaysia says illegal migrants have contributed to a growth in crime and other social problems, the tough new line is also seen as a bid to protect jobs for locals in a time of economic hardship. (AFP)