REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KUCHING -- Indonesian Consulate General in Kuching has said every year an average of 200 Indonesian migrant workers die in Malaysia's Sarawak state.

"The death rate is high and this causes concern for us. The majority of the dead were illegal workers," the consul Jahar Gultom said here on Tuesday. 

Indonesian official records said, there are around 300,000 Indonesian migrant workers in Serawak, but Gultom said he believed the figure is larger than 400,000.

Gultom said the main cause of death is illness. It was found that most of the workers were already sick before they came to Sarawak. 

"As they entered the country illegally they had no medical checks and they continued to work despite illness. That was the factor in addition to working accidents and other causes," he said. 

Many Indonesians crossed the border to work Sarawak illegally from West Kalimantan or North Kalimantan. Malaysian authorities have arrested and repatriated thousands of them.

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