Lankan asylum seekers bound for Australia?

A group of 85 Sri Lankan asylum seekers have told of a horror 45-day journey at sea trying to reach Australia, during which three people died.

The group, all Tamils, almost reached their destination of Christmas Island when the boat's GPS system broke down, the engine failed and they ran out of fuel.

They then drifted for what they say was a dreadful 30 days with no food and water except the rainwater they captured and fish they hooked.

They believe they drifted back into Indonesian waters, before running aground on Panaitan Island near Krakatau Volcano, from where they were eventually rescued.

Two young men drowned as they tried to swim from their vessel to a fishing boat to get help.

Another woman died when the boat ran aground and she was crushed on rocks. The group, which includes children aged two to 14 years, was rescued and brought ashore by Indonesian police.

Banten Water Police Chief Budi Hermawan said the police had already co-ordinated with Australian Federal Police (AFP) based in Jakarta about the asylum seekers and the AFP would co-ordinate further when the group was taken to Jakarta.

He said when the people were found by his men they were very weak.

The group was last night taken to an Indonesian immigration detention centre.

Evacuation from the island, where they were first found on Saturday, had been hampered by bad weather. Hermawan said initial investigations revealed the Sri Lankan group had left their country on August 31.

They are believed to have paid US$ 2,000 to a Sri Lankan people smuggler called Shiba and the children's passages had been free, he said.

No one in the group would confirm how much they had paid for their journey or how they organised it.

The boat left from Mannar and the crew were, according to them, asylum seekers themselves.

Rajavarman, 29, who was driving the boat, said they had been told the journey would take 15 days from Sri Lanka to Christmas Island and that for the first 15 days everything went smoothly.

He believed they were close to Christmas Island and Australian territory when the GPS broke down, the engine had trouble and eventually they ran out of fuel.

The only water they then had was when it rained, which was not every day. "The second day after we missed Christmas Island we ran out of diesel and we were just drifting," Rajavarman said.

"For (the next) 30 days we didn't know if we still had life. The worst thing is fear because we don't know if we are going to live or die." When they eventually got to Panaitan Island the group searched the island for food, eating snails, coconuts, fruit and nuts.

They were eventually found by forestry workers who alerted police.

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