Ship Carrying Refugees Gets Permission to Dock
A ship carrying 434 refugees will be allowed to dock and the migrants can stay temporarily on humanitarian grounds, Indonesian officials said today after Australia rejected the vessel.
The Norwegian-registered cargo ship rescued the asylum seekers from a sinking Indonesian ferry, the KM Palapa 1, early Monday. But some of the Afghan and Sri Lankan passengers demanded that their rescuers take them to Australia and not back to Indonesia.
Early today, the vessel was in international waters within sight of the Australian territory of Christmas Island, 930 miles west of the Australian mainland and about 220 miles from the Indonesian island of Java.
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