INDONESIA: Police in Yogyakarta detain 73 asylum seekers from Iran and Afghanistan

Record ID: 348241

  • Title: INDONESIA: Police in Yogyakarta detain 73 asylum seekers from Iran and Afghanistan
  • Date: 19th October 2010
  • Summary: WOMAN AND BABIES ASYLUM SEEKERS WAITING AT DETENTION CENTRE WOMAN AND CHILDREN
  • Embargoed: 3rd November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Indonesia
  • Country: Indonesia
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABP0VKHXZCMI5L98ZROR2DX5PG
  • Story Text: Police in Yogyakarta, Indonesia detained 73 asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Iran bound for Australia on Sunday (October 17) after their boat broke down at sea.
    Police in Gunung Kidul district said the group was detained after their ship was stranded about one kilometer from Ngrenehan beach, Gunung Kidul.
    The asylum seekers used three small fisherman boats to reach the beach, police said.
    "Sixty-one are Iranians and the rest from Afghanistan, they are from the two countries but mostly from Iran," said the head of the Immigration Office in Yogyakarta, Salman Faris.
    Police also have 10 Indonesian fishermen in custody who provided the boats that brought the asylum seekers to shore.
    Immigration issues remain highly sensitive in Australia where laws and procedures are constantly revised. Currently, people arriving without visas are processed off shore and detained.
    Shahrya, one of immigrants said he does not want to go back to Iran nor stay in a camp for boat people in Australia.
    "I don't want to go to the camp. I don't want to go to the camp. Camp is very bad. I don't want to see the people," Shahrya said. "I don't want to go back to Iran."
    The International Organization on Migration (IOM) and Indonesian Immigration officials plan to move the 73 to a new location due to overcrowding, but it was unclear where they would be moved.
    The boats used by people-smuggling syndicates are often rickety and rarely seaworthy enough for the dangerous crossing to Australia's remote and largely unprotected north.
    The UNHCR reported that 43.3 million people globally were forcibly displaced at the end of 2009, the highest number of people uprooted by conflict and persecution recorded since 1990s.
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