IT’S been 10 years since a group of Sulu gunmen loyal to the self-proclaimed Sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram III, intruded into Lahad Datu in Sabah on Feb 9, 2013.
There were two fronts – one group landed in Lahad Datu’s coastal Kampung Tandao and another at Kampung Simunul in Semporna town.
As the fighting broke out between our security forces and these attackers, which led to casualties on both sides, I headed for Simunul.
I arrived at the sprawling village, with houses on stilts on the outskirts of Semporna, just a couple of days after six policemen were gruesomely killed.
The police immediately carried out a mop-up operation which saw seven of these Filipinos killed and even as I landed, the near deserted village remained a security risk.
Ten years later, I am still asking myself what made me decide to go to Kampung Siminul, the largest of the squatter colonies scattered along the Sabah coastline.
It remains a maze of rickety walkways and when I walked in then, it hit me immediately: why our brave policemen got lost inside and found themselves trapped by seven heavily- armed attackers.
I took a one-and-a-half-hour journey by road from Lahad Datu to Semporna, a distance of about 140km.
At Kampung Simunul, most of its thousands of settlers, mainly Suluk, had disappeared, with their homes locked up and belongings removed to safer places.
But several villagers had steadfastly remained, saying they did not want to camp out in a school hall or community centre.
My colleague from the Kota Kinabalu bureau, Muguntan Vanar, had made calls to local contacts to guide us into the village. I told myself we were taking a huge risk, but it was for a scoop. My dear wife, who is adventurous by nature, was crazy enough to follow me in.
I remember getting a call from a senior police officer demanding to know what we were doing there without informing the police!
It was a frightening time. No one knew the actual size of this village. Some said there were between 300 and 500 houses in there, while others claim that the number was closer to 1,000.
Today, not much has changed, I am told.
This is home to the Suluks, who fled the southern Philippines in the 1970s during the civil war in Mindanao. They had originally settled in refugee enclaves set up by the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, but some had since become Malaysian citizens, while a large number probably had no documents with them.
The water village has a reputation for harbouring bad hats, and the locals avoid entering the area.
It is difficult to navigate the maze of wooden boardwalks, and in the incident on March 5, 2013, that was how our policemen were ambushed as they lost their way in this place.
When I walked into Lorong 4 with my colleagues, we felt like we were being watched by figures in the shadows. An elderly man approached us and asked what we were doing there. He seemed a little friendlier when we told him we were from the media.
“Do you want to see the bullet holes and the spots where the three gunmen were killed?” he offered, as a few others suddenly appeared to join us.
I had to watch my step, as one could easily fall into the water as the boardwalk had many gaping holes.
“The water below was filled with all sorts of rubbish, and a horrible stench emanated from it. I could not help wondering how these people live in such filthy conditions,’’ I wrote in my article in 2013.
We had to take a detour to reach Lorong 5, where the fight took place, because village headman Ramli Sara-man had ordered the boardwalk from Lorong 4 to be broken down as a symbolic gesture to show the “bad men” were from Lorong 5.
They showed us a home that was riddled with bullet holes and pointed out the spots where three of the intruders were killed, and their bodies left untouched for three days.
One was on a boat, one on the walkway and another on the verandah of a home. The splattered blood, close to where the bodies were found, was still very visible when we arrived.
The bodies, which included that of a Filipino councillor of Pulau Sitangkai in the southern Philippines, were eventually removed for burial by the religious authorities.
But the superstitious villagers excused themselves when we walked towards the abandoned home where a policeman was beheaded, saying they did not want to go into that “house of evil”.
We saw what appeared to be the remains of human tissue – it looked like parts of a human brain – by the wooden entrance.
Today, as I read news reports of the heirs of the so-called Sulu Sultanate taking legal action to seize our national assets, I am infuriated.
Not many Malaysians are aware that two of our men in blue were beheaded while another had his eyes gouged out. That was how cruel these intruders were.
I remember walking inside the house even as I thought of the horrible and cruel acts that had been carried out by these heartless militants.
I felt angry and sad at the same time, wondering how human beings could carry out such brutal acts.
The television set had clear traces of blood, which horrified me. The walls of the home were adorned with family photographs, like most ordinary homes, except that something extraordinarily evil had taken place right there.
None of us wanted to stay longer than necessary in that place. As we walked out of the village, we came across a young boy who had come back to collect some of his belongings, saying the family was not ready to move back in.
The men we met said they feared more gunmen may come back and, more so, they feared repercussions from our security men. They said they were just ordinary people trying to eke out a living in peaceful Malaysia, but these militants had given the Suluks a bad name.
Ironically, the word “Semporna” is said to mean “a place of rest” or “a journey completed”, but it wasn’t so.
Many Malaysians have long questioned the influx of these foreigners into Malaysia, especially in Sabah, and if we do not take a stronger, even harsher, stand against such easy entry into our country, we only have ourselves to blame when security threats arise.
Semporna is the gateway to Sipadan, one of the world’s most beautiful diving spots, but it should never be a gateway for illegal immigrants.
It remains a huge dump site, an embarrassing eyesore to tourists, with the local council continuing to struggle with the bad practices of the people living there.
It is 10 years later, and we need to ask ourselves – have we put in enough resources, manpower and assets for our security to keep our long coastal line safe? Safe from these Sulu intruders whose families are hanging on to dreams of reclaiming what they think are their ancestral rights.
