Coronavirus: Indonesia’s migrant workers urged not to return home as Widodo declares state of emergency
- Provinces are scrambling to shut their borders, with the governor of West Java saying that those heading for their hometowns will ‘worsen the situation’
- Thousands of people are fleeing the nation’s capital, Jakarta, where most of Indonesia’s 1,528 confirmed infections have been reported
“Mudik [the act of returning to hometowns or villages] is going to worsen our situation. Please stay where you are for the time being,” said Ridwan Kamil, the governor of West Java, which is home to some 50 million people.
Some of the country’s provincial and regional governors are desperate to shut borders in an effort to stem the flow of people, but need approval from the central government to do so. Thousands of people have fled Jakarta, the epicentre of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak, where most of Indonesia’s 1,528 confirmed infections have been reported.
[Returning home] is going to worsen our situation. Please stay where you are for the time being
That figure is widely thought to be well below the real number in the archipelago of more than 270 million people. As of Tuesday, the country’s death toll of 136 was the highest in Southeast Asia.