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Migrant workers escape from detention centerThe China Post news staff TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Four Vietnamese migrant workers have escaped from a Nantou detention center while awaiting repatriation, immigration officials said yesterday.
February 23, 2013, 12:01 am TWN The escapees sawed off the metal bars of their third-floor room's window, climbed down to the ground and over the wall of the center, then disappeared in the early hours of Thursday, the officials from the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said. The center's management did not know they had escaped until the roll call the next morning, they said, adding that the NIA is hunting for the escapees and stepping up security measures at the center. It is the first escape from the Nantou detention center since it was set up in April 2009 to house migrant workers before their repatriation. The four escapees had long overstayed their work visas before they were captured and sent to the center less than a month ago, the officials said. The head of the center has been relocated to a nonadministrative post following the escape, while two others at the facility have also been penalized, the officials added. According to the officials, the center currently houses more than 200 foreign workers, about 100 of them coming from Vietnam. The room from which the four Vietnamese escaped accommodated about 70 migrant workers at the time of the escape, but the four escapees beds were nearest the window.
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