Kuala Lumpur: Seventeen Muslim refugees from Myanmar broke out of a Malaysian detention center for illegal immigrants after cutting through steel bars and a perimeter fence, a news report said Thursday.

The men, all ethnic Rohingya refugees, sawed through bars on their cell windows and snipped a hole in the fence before dawn Wednesday, making their escape in waiting cars near the facility in Sepang, the New Straits Times reported.

Six were recaptured within hours of the break. Police and immigration officers were searching for the rest, and checking on the facility’s lists of inmates’ contacts and visitors the suspected source of the tools used for the escape.

“We will continue our search until we find the detainees,” the Immigration Department enforcement director Ishak Mohamed was quoted as saying.

Ishak was not immediately available in his office or reachable on his mobile phone for further details.

The temporary holding center, with some 280 detainees near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, was equipped with less stringent security features compared to the department’s other permanent detention facilities.

An estimated 10,000 ethnic Rohingyas live in Malaysia. The government announced in 2004 that they would recognize the community as refugees and grant temporary stay permits, but some members of the ethnic group still get rounded up in raids against illegal immigrants. The reason for this is unclear.