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Indonesian authorities have quoted the asylum seekers on board saying Australian navy personnel fired shots as part of the operation to turn around the boat carrying 25 people.
This is the third confirmed tow-back of an asylum seeker vessel by the Australian authorities since December 13, despite the objections of Indonesian authorities. The other two boats were returned to Rote Island in far-eastern Indonesia.
The officer, quoting one of those on board, Snilul, 25, from Bangladesh, said the navy had “shot into the air just to scare them”.
“The boat hadn’t reached Australia – they were still at sea but they said they could already see Christmas Island,” the officer said.
“But they said the Australian navy then drove them away and escorted them until they entered Indonesian waters again.”
The boat had been carrying 25 people from Bangladesh and Myanmar and two Indonesian crew.
“There were four children, the youngest was one-and-a-half years; there were men and women. Nobody died in the sea,” the police officer said.
The asylum seekers told him they had started off from Medan in North Sumatra and had been on the water for 10 days.
After the Australian ship returned them to Indonesian waters, they made their way to the southern coast of Java.
Asked if he believed the boat was seaworthy for 25 people, the officer said it had only been built for about 10 people.
Fairfax Media has confirmed with other local officials that the asylum seekers were taken to a hotel in the town of Rangkasbitung. A staff member there said the migrants had now left her hotel, but she did not know where they had gone.
Meanwhile, asylum seeker sources in Cisarua, West Java, said they believed a boat carrying 54 people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Iraq had gone missing after setting off from the town on January 5 or in the early hours of January 6. But reports late on Wednesday night suggested the boat may have returned to Indonesia.
“There has been no news, no phone calls or contact by internet, no calls to their homes,” the source said earlier in the day.
The smuggler was insisting that the boat had reached Christmas Island and that he had received a call from the Indonesian captain. He was demanding payment of money held in trust.
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