Hong Kong murders: migrant workers rally for Indonesian victims

HONG KONG // Around 200 migrant workers held a vigil yesterday to mourn the two young Indonesian women brutally murdered in Hong Kong.

Messages from relatives and friends of the two victims – Sumarti Ningsih and Seneng Mujiahsih – were read out at the ceremony held at Victoria Park in the heart of the city.

Participants also made donations for the girls’ families in Indonesia, and performed songs and prayers in their memory.

British banker Rurik Jutting has been charged with the murders of the two women whose bodies were found in his upmarket apartment, one of them decomposing in a suitcase.

“I hope the killer will be punished and feel what my cousin was suffering,” one woman, who said she was a relative of Ningsih, told those gathered – reducing many in the crowd to tears.

The 29-year-old securities trader lived streets away from the neon-lit bars of Hong Kong’s famous red-light district. Both of the victims formerly worked in Hong Kong as domestic workers.

Activists have accused the Indonesian authorities of doing little to help the victims’ families.

“We are all migrant workers and want protection of our rights. We demand our government make sure all migrant workers abroad are protected,” one community leader said.

The Indonesian foreign ministry has rejected the accusations, saying officials had flown into Hong Kong to handle the matter and were in contact with the victims’ family members.

*Agence France-Presse