Australia turns back asylum seeker boat

Jill Fraser

MELBOURNE, Australia

A small wooden boat, reportedly carrying eight suspected asylum seekers, has been intercepted off the coast of Christmas Island and towed away from Australian waters.

Anadolu Agency understands that an Indonesian fishing boat arrived at the Smith’s Point end of Flying Fish Cove on Christmas Island -- a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean -- early Friday local time.

Locals said the boat came within 200 metres of shore.

Christmas Island shire president Gordon Thomson told the Australian Associated Press that by the time he arrived at Smith Point -- before 7 a.m. (0800GMT) -- the boat was being towed by an Australian navy boat and was 3-5 kilometers (1.8-3.1 miles) out to sea.

"I saw the navy patrol boat towing the Indonesian fishing boat out to sea away from Christmas Island," Thomson told AAP.

"It's a wicked thing to do."

Australia’s asylum seeker policy states that asylum seekers arriving by boat are “illegals” and refused entry to Australia.

They are transferred to processing centres on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

The last documented asylum seeker boat arrival to Australia was in 2014, when a group of 157 Tamil asylum seekers was intercepted north of Christmas Island.

The immigration detention centre on Christmas Island is still recovering from two days of violent rioting just under two weeks ago, sparked by the death of an escaped detainee, which resulted in more than A$10 million ($7.2 million) worth of damage.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declined to comment on the matter when asked at a media event in Darwin on Friday.

“As you know, we don't comment on operational matters,” he said, before winding up the event.

The Greens Immigration spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young issued a statement calling on the government to allow the boat to safely land and unload its passengers.

“It’s clear that, despite the government’s repeated claims, the boats haven’t stopped,” she declared.

At a press conference in Brisbane, Hanson-Young said the incident and the government's tow-back policy would test whether the new prime minister would be different to his predecessor, Tony Abbott.

"Will he use this boat to upset Indonesia or will he use it as an opportunity to break from the Abbott past?"

"It is a responsibility of the government to bring those people ashore and find out if they need help," Hanson-Young added.

"The issue is you've got to show people that there is a clear pathway and if there is no pathway, people engage with people smugglers."

Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul told Anadolu Agency that he has no idea what happened to the asylum seekers or their boat once they “disappeared over the horizon”.

“We are extremely concerned that the navy is attempting to turn this boat back to Indonesia,” said Rintoul.

“Australian officials may well be, once again, trying to bribe the crew to return to Indonesia,” he said, referencing allegatons that Indonesian people smugglers were paid to return a boat-load of asylum seekers to Indonesia.

“We know many boats are still attempting to reach Australia to gain the protection they cannot get in Indonesia," Rintoul added.

"These asylum seekers may well be fleeing the same dangers as the 12,000 Syrians Australia says it will accept."