350 Drown as Ship Sinks Off Indonesia
About 350 people who set sail from Indonesia in search of a new life drowned after their boat sank off the island of Java minutes after it started taking on water, relief officials said Monday.
The 44 people who survived spent hours in the sea before being rescued by fishermen Saturday, said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, or IOM.
The Geneva-based organization said most of those on board were Iraqis, along with Iranians, Afghans, Palestinians and Algerians.
The passengers’ destination was unknown, but thousands of illegal migrants leave Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia every year on boats trying to reach Australia.
Survivors told IOM workers that the ship left Java, Indonesia’s main island, on Thursday with 421 people on board, most of them illegal immigrants, Chauzy said. Later that day, 21 passengers asked to return to shore and were left on a smaller Indonesian island.
Early Friday, the captain announced that the engine had stopped and that the ship was taking on water.
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