People-smuggling boat sinks off Australia :
Thirteen dead, dozens missing
Thirteen people were confirmed dead and dozens missing after a
suspected people-smuggling boat sank off Australia’s remote Christmas
Island, authorities said yesterday. Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare
said aerial surveillance of a debris field of wood and life jackets had
spotted 13 bodies and a full-scale hunt -- involving 15 ships and 10
aircraft -- was under way for survivors. “This is a search and rescue,
trying to find people alive,” Clare told reporters, describing the
incident as “another terrible tragedy, another terrible reminder how
dangerous these journeys are”.
When the drifting boat was first spotted by a border protection
aircraft on Wednesday, Clare said officials “identified approximately 55
people on the deck of the vessel, mostly adult men but also a small
number of women and children”.
The Navy vessel HMAS Warramunga was sent to intercept the boat on
Thursday but it had disappeared, and aerial searches turned up no sign
until Friday, when Clare said a “submerged hull” was seen from the air.
The Warramunga arrived on site to find wood and life jackets
floating, with the first body sighted late on Friday and another 12
found by yesterday morning.
Rear Admiral David Johnston, head of border protection, said the
“complex and time-consuming” task of recovering bodies would not begin
until the search for survivors was exhausted.
“We believe from (medical) advice that we are still in the window
where survivability is possible,” Johnston said.
Johnston said sea conditions had been favourable and when the vessel
was initially sighted on Wednesday “nothing about (the passengers’)
demeanour suggested that this boat was in distress”.
He added that Indonesia’s maritime authority Basarnas was “certainly
aware of the incident” but was caught up with a number of other vessels
closer to the Indonesian coastline.
HMAS Warramunga had also been diverted to assist another suspected
people-smuggling boat off Christmas Island, which issued a distress call
to Australian police overnight, Clare said.
Hundreds of refugees have died in asylum-seeker boat accidents on the
perilous sea journey from Indonesia to Australia in recent years, the
latest in March when a boat carrying 95 capsized, killing two people
including a small child. Another vessel disappeared without a trace in
the Sunda Strait in April with 72 on board and there were fears of a
further sinking in May when 28 life jackets washed up on the Cocos
Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Australia is struggling with a record influx of asylum-seekers
arriving by boat from Indonesia and Sri Lanka, with numbers expected to
top 25,000 in the 12 months to June 30 despite punitive policies
banishing refugees to the remote Pacific.
Even as the search unfolded yesterday the government reported the
arrival of three more boats carrying 275 people.
- AFP
|