Mobile NRD teams will help fire victims get back papers they lost

SANDAKAN: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim says that the National Registration Department (NRD) will use mobile services to help people who lost their IDs in the Kampung Bahagia fire get new ones.

The prime minister said that mobile teams would be sent to the affected area to help replace things like birth certificates, MyKads, and MyKids. The Immigration Department would be in charge of changing passports.
I’ve asked to talk with the home minister about the issue, and people from the National Registration Department will be sent to Kampung Bahagia to do registers.
“We have records of citizenship, so everyone should feel safe, even if they are not a citizen.” “We will replace birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, MyKid, and MyKad, even for people who are not Muslim, and the government will pay for it,” he said.

Before coming here on Wednesday (Apr. 22), Anwar visited the victims at the Kampung Bahagia mosque and the temporary relief center at PPR Taman Batu Sapi.
He also said some haven’t registered due to fear of being sued, but he assured them that enforcement isn’t the main goal right now.

“I want you to know that right now, our main concern is the safety and well-being of the victims.” “Right now is not the time for us to strictly enforce laws and rules,” he said. “But in the long run, we will have to ask them to follow the normal registration process.”
Anwar also said that Kampung Bahagia, which used to be a UNHCR refugee camp for Filipinos, would be redeveloped over the long term. He said that the matter would be talked over with the Sabah government, and he stressed that any choice had to be carefully thought out because of how big the project was.
In the past, Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor said that about 70% of the fire victims were not Malaysian.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said on April 21 that all steps for victims to register and get new IDs would be looked at case by case by the Sabah government, along with state and federal agencies.

But he stressed that the ministry would not take a blanket approach. Instead, they would focus on helping real Malaysians who lost their papers in the fire.
About 1,000 stilt houses were destroyed in a fire at midnight on Sunday (April 19), forcing 9,007 people to leave their homes in Kampung Bahagia, Batu Sapi.
The fire only spared about 200 homes.
There are now eight relief centers open, but thousands of people are still living in the Kampung Bahagia compound.