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PETALING JAYA: Roughly 200 Malaysians were stranded for hours at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) amid confusion over a new ruling banning people from 23 countries and claiming there were no hotel rooms to quarantine to arrivals.
Yesterday they were forced to stay inside airport waiting rooms for more than 10 hours while ground staff, including airline staff, airport staff and immigration officers, tried to figure out whether the new rule applied. them too.
However, when contacted, immigration officials said it was clear that Malaysians would be allowed entry with all the proper documents.
Jolene Yap, who was among 50 Malaysians who arrived from the UK around 6.30am yesterday, claimed that when she and the others disembarked, they were prevented from reaching the immigration counters despite showing approval letters from the Alto Malaysian Commissioner in the UK.
“At first, we were detained because ground staff were not sure whether Malaysians were allowed entry under the new regulations.
“After hours of waiting, an official from the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) said that they couldn’t find hotel rooms to quarantine us.
“Then he gave us all the hotel phone numbers and told us that we should try to reserve our own hotel rooms.
“Even though we all called the same list of numbers, the hotels told us, when we managed to get through, that only Nadma can reserve rooms for quarantine and we cannot.
“We have been circled and we are all tired from the long flight,” said a frustrated Yap.
At around 4 p.m., Yap said Nadma informed her and the other passengers that rooms were available for them and then transferred them to quarantine stations in groups.
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