Suspect asylum seekers at Christmas Is | The AustralianUPDATED: Mark Dodd | July 11, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A suspected asylum seeker vessel intercepted yesterday off Christmas Island by the Royal Australian Navy has arrived at the island's small port and is expected to disembark.
They will be held at the island's immigration detention centre which is now reaching capacity following a surge of asylum seekers over the past eight months.
The RAN's patrol boat HMAS Armidale intercepted the boat - the 17th to be detected so far this year - 80 nautical miles from Christmas Island.
It brings to more than 900 asylum seekers detained in Australian waters so far this year along with more than 35 foreign crew.
'The group will be transferred to Christmas Island where they will undergo security, identity and health checks to establish their identity and reasons for travel, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor said in a statement yesterday.
Meanwhile, there are growing fears for the safety of 59 asylum seekers whose boat foundered and sank of the eastern Indonesian island of Sumbawa last week.
Indonesian authorities have detained 15 people off the boat who currently being held in the small port town of Bima.
An initial claim by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith that all the passengers on the boat had been rescued was incorrect.
Asylum-seekers promised 'a big ship' | The Australian
Paul Maley and Stephen Fitzpatrick | July 14, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE Afghan asylum-seekers whose boat foundered in eastern Indonesia last week were told by people-smugglers they would be travelling to Australia on a "big ship" with their passports.
In a revealing insight into the way smugglers do business, Hussain Ali, 24, told The Australian the Afghan who organised his passage to Australia disappeared as he and his fellow Hazaras were due to board the ill-fated vessel.
The news came as investigators in Indonesia said the bulk of the up to 85 Afghan asylum-seekers aboard the boat had probably filtered back to Jakarta, where it is feared they will try to launch a second attempt to reach Australia.
Mr Ali said yesterday he had paid $US8000 ($10,300) for his trip to Australia, which began with a meeting with an "agent", or people-smuggler, in Kabul more than two months ago.
"He says, 'we take you to Australia by the passport, by the plane, by the big ship'," Mr Ali said. "When we arrived in Jakarta they put us in the small ship." Mr Ali said he and his fellow passengers, some of whom had travelled via Kuala Lumpur from refugee camps in Pakistan, were angry.
He said he tried to contact the agent, but his phone was off.
"We angry, we were angry," Mr Ali said. "So what should (we) do? We are illegal. His mobile was off." Only 29 of the group are in custody on the eastern island of Sumbawa. One member of that small group, Ali Yewar, alias Juma Khan, fled soon after speaking to The Australian on the weekend. According to the owner of the lodgings where police have temporarily housed the asylum-seekers, Mr Yewar's absence was discovered on Sunday when dinner was being distributed.
Another of the group, Afghan teenager Mustafa Ismael, told The Australian yesterday he had taken a 24-hour bus journey nearly two weeks ago from Jakarta to the boat's launching point, the industrial port of Surabaya, in east Java.
"I was about one month and a half in Indonesia before I left Jakarta, and then after the bus ride, we were three days to travel by sea," the 15-year-old said.
The overloaded boat's engine gave out last Tuesday night near Komodo island, in eastern Indonesia. However, it appears either crew members or someone among the Afghans was able to nurse the engine for another 24 to 48 hours and get the craft near a small port in the southwest of Sumbawa island.
"All the people who understand swimming, they went swimming (to land)," Mustafa said. "The captain just helped his brother and the other crew, but we had to leave the boat by ourselves."
Indonesian police believe the group was helped to shore by local fishermen in small groups. Police subsequently arrested several of them on buses heading for Jakarta or at a bus terminal. However, many more got away.
Those who have been apprehended are being dealt with by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration, the organisations that manage refugee claims in Indonesia, which does not recognise international conventions on refugees.
Yesterday, four Indonesian men accused of crewing another asylum-seeker boat that was carrying 74 passengers and was intercepted by Australian authorities on May 24 appeared before a Perth court.
UNHCR | Refworld | Indonesia-Australia: "Significant" increase in illegal migration
JAKARTA, 12 June 2009 (IRIN) - Indonesia is experiencing a fresh influx of asylum seekers using the country as a transit point to Australia.
Conflict and economic hardship are driving the trend, officials say.
Many from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Iraq seek better lives elsewhere, with hundreds transiting through the island nation and embarking on perilous journeys in creaky boats to Australia, officials confirm.
On 28 May, nine people were killed and 11 went missing after a boat carrying 36 Australia-bound undocumented migrants from Afghanistan sank off Indonesia's Sumatra Island.
On 2 June, police on the eastern island of Sumba arrested four suspected people-smugglers trying to send 59 Afghan and Pakistani migrants to Australia.
Between April and May alone, Indonesian police detained 147 undocumented migrants, mostly from war-torn Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, Indonesia's Directorate-General of Immigration (DGI) reported.
"There's definitely an increase compared to the previous months," said Muchdor, the director for enforcement at the DGI.
About 800 migrants were intercepted between September 2008 and April 2009 while fewer than 400 were caught in the previous period, he said.
National police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said there had been a "significant" increase in illegal arrivals this year, but did not give figures.
At a regional conference on people smuggling in Indonesia on 14 April, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned that the global financial crisis might force more people to seek better lives, leading to more people smuggling and trafficking.
Porous borders
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), given Indonesia's porous borders and lack of resources and coordination among agencies, many illegal arrivals go undetected.
More than 800 asylum seekers are being held in detention centres across Indonesia pending examination by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on their refugee status, said immigration spokesman, Maroloan Barimbing.
"Their main motive is that they don't feel safe in their countries and they have to escape to survive," Barimbing said.
This year alone, Australian authorities intercepted 12 boats carrying asylum-seekers mostly from Afghanistan and the Middle East, against seven last year.
The IOM's 2008 annual report stated it had helped 136 "irregular migrants" mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan last year, with 91 resettled in third countries and 36 returned voluntarily. The remainder were reunited with their lost families in different countries.
This year the IOM has helped 48 mostly Afghan asylum seekers to return home voluntarily and resettled 36 in third countries, including Canada and Australia, said Jihan Labetubun, an IOM Indonesia official.
Law enforcement
Indonesia said the recent arrests of undocumented migrants showed that law enforcers were doing their job well.
"It shows that the government has been successful in detecting the presence of illegal migrants. This is positive in terms of law enforcement," the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Teuku Faizasyah, told IRIN.
He also said the government was considering holding asylum seekers under one roof in Jakarta, instead of keeping them in separate immigration centres across the country under the present system, to monitor them more effectively.
Indonesian Justice Minister Andi Mattalatta and a high-level Australian delegation led by Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus met in Jakarta on 4 June to discuss further efforts to tackle people smuggling and the flow of undocumented migrants.
The two countries agreed on new measures, including improving arrangements for the care of migrants in Indonesia, detention management, mutual legal assistance and training for immigration and law enforcement agencies, the Australian embassy said in a statement issued on 4 June.
In a posting on the Australian Home Affairs Ministry's website, Debus said the government had allocated an additional Aus$654 million (US$531 million) to combat people smuggling.
"Our strengthened border security measures will enable us to identify people smugglers, intercept people-smuggling ventures and prosecute people smugglers," he said.
Meanwhile, Anita Restu, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Indonesia, said her office was verifying the status of 821 asylum seekers who had applied for refugee status, from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Iran and Somalia.
"They will undergo an interview process," Restu told IRIN, adding that it would take time before it could be determined whether they were eligible for refugee status and resettled.
The IOM said it was cooperating with Indonesia and Australia under a tripartite agreement allowing Indonesia to determine the intention of intercepted migrants.
Those identified as transiting through Indonesia on their way to Australia or New Zealand were referred to IOM for assistance.
Frantic quest for asylum-seekers | The Australian
Paul Maley and Stephen Fitzpatrick | July 10, 2009
Article from: The Australian
AUSTRALIAN officials were last night frantically trying to ascertain the fate of up to 74 asylum-seekers aboard a stricken fishing boat, after Foreign Minister Stephen Smith conceded reports that the Indonesian navy had rescued the boat were wrong.
Mr Smith's admission came as Indonesian officials expressed frustration over what they described as "inaccurate" information from the Australian Federal Police regarding the boat's supposed sinking.
In a statement released late last night, Mr Smith said an assurance he offered on the ABC's Lateline program 24 hours earlier -- that the boat had been rescued after the AFP tipped off Indonesian authorities -- was wrong.
Mr Smith said his advice was based on reports conveyed by the Indonesians to Australian officials in Jakarta.
He conceded that Australian officials had no idea what had become of the Australia-bound vessel, understood to contain a number of women and children.
Mr Smith's comments mark the latest chapter in an extraordinary rescue attempt, which began with a text message sent by one of the boat's passengers to a contact in Pakistan.
That message was then relayed to Australian refugee advocate Ian Rintoul, who, after contacting passengers aboard the boat, alerted Australia's Border Protection Command.
Border Protection Command is understood to have alerted the AFP, who sent a text message to Indonesian authorities.
Border Protection Command yesterday refused to confirm it had been contacted by Mr Rintoul.
The AFP confirmed it was aware of reports of a vessel in distress but declined to comment further, saying the incident occurred in Indonesian waters and was the responsibility of Indonesian authorities.
Mr Rintoul said he had three conversations with passengers on the boat after he received the message at 5am on Wednesday.
"They kept saying, 'We need help, we need help, there are people in distress, we're taking on water," Mr Rintoul told The Australian.
"I kept saying, 'Where are you, where are you?' but I couldn't make any sense of it."
Mr Rintoul said he received four or five text messages from one of the passengers.
The last one read: "I dont know da location. My mb has no power now. I cnt contact u anymore. May God help us."
Mr Rintoul said he had since received a text message from his contact in Pakistan, who had been in contact with passengers aboard the boat.
The passengers said they were on an island, indicating the boat made land and did not sink.
That conclusion was supported by Indonesian authorities, who said yesterday they had called off their search for the 74 Afghans and Indonesian boat crew members.
Okto George Riwu, from police headquarters in East Nusa Tenggara province, where the asylum-seekers were reported to have landed, described the situation as "confusing".
"The information we received was certainly inaccurate," Mr Riwu said. "We conducted our search and rescue operation based on what it said, and didn't find anything. All the islands in this area have been thoroughly combed."
Suspected Asylum seekers moved to Christmas Island | The AustralianMay 24, 2009
Article from: Australian Associated Press
A BOATLOAD of 77 suspected asylum seekers has been intercepted near Ashmore Reef off Australia's northwest coast.
The vessel is believed to be carrying 73 passengers and four crew, Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said in a statement today.
The group will be transferred to Christmas Island where they will undergo health and security checks.
Mr Debus said the Royal Australian Navy discovered the vessel about six nautical miles north of Ashmore Reef.
“The Australian government is committed to strong border security arrangements and is determined to deal effectively and appropriately with people smugglers,” he said.
It is the 13th boat carrying suspected asylum seekers to be intercepted in Australian waters this year.
AAP
Indonesian police arrest 28 Afghan migrants_English_Xinhua
JAKARTA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian police have arrested and detained 28 Afghan migrants for heading to Australia, National Police Spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said here Wednesday.
The spokesman said that they were arrested in a ferry at Banten area about 100 kilometers from Jakarta, capital of the country.
"They were arrested in Banten," he told Xinhua.
They were detained at immigration prisons for question, Nataprawira said.
Indonesia has been a favorable transit spot for those illegal migrants from Afghanistan and other countries insisting to enter Australia with dangerous boat journey.
Indonesia and Australia have cooperated in handling the human trafficking.
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