Indonesian police reported Wednesday that Australia had repatriated dozens of unlawful migrants to a distant southern island after intercepting their vessel at sea, marking at the very least the second such incident this yr.
According to Mardiono, police chief of Indonesia’s Rote Island, the migrants arrived final month aboard two boats they claimed they had been coerced onto following an Australian interception of their picket craft.
Initial stories indicated a vessel had run aground.
“After we checked, we found a boat made from aluminum, without a name and without a flag,” he stated, including it was carrying 22 individuals.
Later that day, police discovered an identical vessel carrying one other 22 males that had run aground on a special a part of the island.
Mardiono stated many of the males recognized themselves as Bangladeshis and included eight Rohingya from Myanmar. They had been in custody at native police headquarters.
He stated they claimed to have spent three days at sea earlier than being intercepted by an Australian vessel.
They stated they had been detained for 18 days earlier than being put aboard two boats and instructed to move to Rote Island, he added.
Their claims couldn’t be independently verified.
But, an Australian Border Force (ABF) spokesperson instructed Agence France-Presse (AFP) in an announcement that it “does not confirm or comment on operational matters.”
In June, Indonesian immigration authorities stated in an announcement that they detained 28 foreigners stranded on a seashore in southern Java who stated they’d been set adrift after being intercepted by Australian authorities.
Under a hard-line coverage launched greater than a decade in the past, Australia has despatched 1000’s of migrants trying to succeed in the nation by boat to detention facilities on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru.
Successive Australian governments have vowed that no asylum-seeker arriving by boat will ever be allowed to settle within the nation completely.
Source: www.dailysabah.com