Afghans on the Loose

Not Afghan hounds. Not Afghans like the ones your great-grandmother crochets. I'm talking about passport holding Afghani people. Twenty-five of them, to be exact. Illegals. Here. In my town. Here are the facts as they were related to me:

Twenty-five illegal Afghan immigrants landed in the coastal city of Semarang a few days ago. Their final destination was Australia, but the Indonesian government caught wind of them and arrested all twenty-five. Their plan was to drive them to Surabaya (the second largest city in the country) and put them on a boat back to Afghanistan. The road from Semarang to Surabaya passes through my town. And it was while they were in my town that the twenty-five Afghans hatched a plan. They were all riding in a bus with a police escort, and apparently Indonesian law mandates that you cannot handcuff people unless they are criminals. Because these people were only illegal immigrants, they were not bound or restrained in any way. So they ganged up on the bus driver and his friend. Friend got thrown off the bus into a field and the driver was tied up and gagged. All twenty-five Afghans ran for it. The police escort managed to recapture twenty of them directly. But there are still five on the loose.

I don't know what neighborhood exactly they were in when they busted out. But the toll road they were on runs about a kilometer from my house. So the police have told us all to be on the lookout for anyone "with an Arab face". You know, brown eyes, dark skin, dark hair. JUST LIKE EVERYBODY HERE. That should be easy.

In other news, my friend Jess who was captured by pirates a week ago today was able to get word to her org to say that she and her coworker, Poul, are alive and well. Praise God for that! Now to get them out of there...