Australia Intercepts Migrant Boat
Australia’s navy boarded an Indonesian boat carrying about 200 suspected illegal immigrants who were believed to be headed for Australia, Prime Minister John Howard said Saturday.
The migrants were taken off the boat Friday night and put on the troop ship Manoora, which was heading for Papua New Guinea with more than 430 asylum seekers turned away recently by Howard after they were rescued from a sinking Indonesian ferry by a Norwegian cargo ship.
Howard said the latest boatload of refugees was intercepted after it ignored warnings to stop and continued toward the Ashmore Islands, off Australia’s northwestern coast.
Indonesian authorities turned down a request for the vessel to be boarded while it was in Indonesian waters, so Australian authorities waited for it to arrive in international waters before taking action, Howard told reporters in Sydney.
The vessel did not reach Australian waters so “the questions of application for asylum status do not arise,” he said.
Howard also said he would change Australia’s immigration laws to bar people arriving on the Ashmore Islands or Christmas Island--where the previous refugee crisis happened--from applying for asylum in Australia.
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