Gov't defends conditions at deportation camp

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Conditions at a Sabah deportation camp at the centre of a row over the alleged mistreatment of Filipino illegal immigrants were defended Friday by camp officials.

Ismail Zakaria, deputy chief of the Sandakan detention camp denied charges that children had died in the centre.

He said television footage of a mother weeping over her dead baby, which has provoked anger in the Philippines, had been shot on a Philippine naval ship ferrying deportees home and it was possible that the mother had not reported the child's weak condition before boarding the ship.

"If she had come to us and told us her child was sick, we would immediately send the infant to the hospital, with the mother," he said.

"But these immigrants, they don't want to remain in the camp longer than they have to, so they fear missing the boat home while they are in the hospital."

He said said inmates were sent to the hospital as soon as they complained of illness, and none had died in the camp.

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