Law enforcement increases as more boats arrive to Australia

The largest boatload of asylum seekers to arrive since 2009, and the sixth in a week, has landed on Christmas Island as officials from the Australian Government are visiting Indonesia to discuss new ways stop people smuggling.

There were 167 asylum seekers and crew on the latest boat, making it the third-largest boat to arrive since 2009. A total of 542 asylum seekers and crew have arrived this week. After a record 901 asylum seekers and crew were intercepted in November, December is expected to be even bigger.

Since the Australian Parliament forced the Government to abandon offshore processing, boats have steadily increased in size and frequency. By the 6th of December, 3920 asylum seekers have arrived.  This is the third-highest total on record and almost one-third of the total has arrived in the past six weeks.

By Monday 5th December, there were 1235 asylum-seekers being held in Christmas Island detention centre which is designed to house 1244. But the latest arrival and a group of asylum seekers who are still in transit will add another 240 people.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, blamed the rise in arrivals on the Opposition, which has stopped laws being changed which would allow offshore processing and the Malaysia Plan.

The recent boat arrivals came as senior Australian Government officials were in Jakarta discussing “new ways” for Indonesia and Australia to work together to stop people smuggling syndicates and their bosses. They have discussed how to combat people trafficking and smuggling as well as ways to improve the age determination process for people smuggling crew. While there, Australia delivered three 16-metre speedboats to the Indonesian police. But Indonesian police officials said that they needed much bigger boats to fight people smuggling.

Australia has also been contributing to the Indonesian Maritime Security Board, helping the Indonesians to train their staff on maritime security and sea law. In addition, Australia has donated $2 million for a maritime radio communication network.

Speaking in Indonesia, Australian Government officials said they expected more boats carrying asylum seekers to leave from Indonesia in the next few months, despite the dangerous conditions during the monsoon season. “We're on the cusp of the anniversary of the Christmas Island tragedy and that's why the Government wants to work with the governments within the region to combat people-smuggling.”

Another Australian Government official said that there was now an “increased likelihood of people perishing at sea” as asylum seekers boarded boats in the monsoon period. A year ago, 50 asylum seekers died in a boat crash off Christmas Island in bad weather. Because of this, he also said Australia and Indonesia were developing new strategies to arrest people smuggling bosses, including the introduction of new laws in countries around the region.

20 Asylum-seekers die on the way to Australia

At least 20 asylum seekers have drowned when their boat sank off the Indonesian coast on 1^st November 2011.
The asylum seekers were attempting to reach Australia on a small wooden boat.  The boat was carrying around 70 asylum seekers from Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan but it did not have enough equipment.  The boat left from Central Java and was heading for West Java when it sank.
Indonesian authorities said that 52 people were rescued and 8 people were confirmed dead including 4 women and 2 children. Another body was found later and the body of a nine-year-old boy was pulled from the water on Wednesday 2^nd November. At least other 10 people are still missing including three girls aged about two.
The rescue operation has failed to find any more bodies or survivors until now. Injured survivors are being cared for in a hospital and medical centre. The other survivors are understood to be at a police station and navy base.
An Indonesian policeman said "the dead have been identified as being from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ones survived mostly from Iran. We believe there were at least 59 Iranian, three Afghanis and six from Pakistan. But the number is not supported by documents and there is a language problem too. So, we can't tell exactly the number missing. It's just a rough number."
Indonesia authorities said that bad weather and overcrowding might have contributed to the accident. There are also reports that local fishermen's associations had been warning for days that conditions were too rough to go out in the sea.
One of the survivors is an Iranian widow who had decided to try to start a new life in Australia with her two children, Mahdieh, her 14-year-old daughter, and Mahdi, her nine-year-old boy. “I was feeling sick and I was asleep [on the boat]. They woke me up when it was sinking. I said ‘I can't see my daughter, my people,’” she said. She found a life jacket and jumped into the sea but never saw her children again.
The is the first tragedy since December last year when nearly 50 people died after their boat smashed into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island. There have been many tragic incidents of asylum seekers on the way to Australia in past years, especially during the monsoon season when the weather is bad and the seas become very rough.
Australian authorities are concerned that even more asylum seekers will drown trying to get to Australia on unsafe boats in dangerous waters. The Home Affairs Minister said ''If we do not have the strongest deterrent to prevent people smugglers plying their trade, we will see further disasters ... we do not want to see further tragedies. This really does underline the need for parliament and for all parties involved to put in place the most effective deterrent to stop this awful trade.''
Australian politician Sarah Hanson-Young said the tragedy proved that more needed to be done to create safer options for asylum seekers. “This must include taking more people directly from Indonesia and Malaysia before they set out in unseaworthy vessels,” she said.
The Australian Government continues to look for support for its Malaysia Plan which it believes will break the people smugglers model and deter asylum seekers from risking their lives trying to get to Australia by boat. The Immigration Minister said “this is a terrible tragedy but it is a fact that when you have more boats coming to Australia you will see more deaths. We didn't adopt the Malaysia arrangement because it was politically easy or it was convenient, quite the opposite. We adopted it because we knew that this was the sort of arrangement that was necessary to avoid more deaths at sea.”
The Home Affairs Minister also said the Opposition should support the Malaysia Solution. "This is a tragic event, which underscores the absolutely dire need to put in the strongest possible deterrence to combat people smuggling and to prevent dangerous vessels from embarking on a journey to Australia,'' he said.

Indonesia and Australia’s Monsoon Season will put Asylum-seekers at risk of drowning

People smugglers in Indonesia are trying to arrange for their boats to leave quickly before the monsoon season begins and makes the boat journey to Australia even more dangerous.

Reports suggest that there are over 500 people waiting in Indonesia to try to get to Australia by boat without visas.  They are trying to use people smugglers who are eager for their boats to leave soon because they have only another two to three weeks before the monsoon starts.

The monsoon season in Indonesia begins in November and moves south to Australia where it usually lasts for 3 months from December to March.  Throughout the monsoon season there is much heavier rain than normal in northern Australia.  These rains and storms make the seas north of Australia very unsafe for the small wooden Indonesian fishing boats. 

A minister of the Australian Government said that he was very concerned about asylum seekers dying while trying to get to Australia by boat.  He said: “We do not want to see asylum-seekers lose their lives. We've got the monsoon season coming up. We do not want to see boats arriving and people losing their lives like they did just before Christmas last year.”

During last year’s monsoon season in December 2010 a boat carrying Iranian, Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers crashed into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island during a monsoon.  30 people drowned and the bodies of another 18 asylum seekers were never found.

At the beginning of the monsoon season last November 2010, a month before the Christmas Island boat tragedy, another boat carrying asylum-seekers went missing between Indonesia and Australia. Relatives and friends of those asylum-seekers say that they heard their loved ones were getting on a boat but then never heard from them again. According to Australian authorities, boats usually take 2 to 4 days to reach Australian waters from Indonesia. It has almost been a year now since that boat left Indonesia on November 13.

Over the years there have been many cases of boats sinking or going missing on the way to Australia. The bad weather during monsoon season makes the sea journey even more dangerous. While the exact number of asylum-seeker deaths at sea will never be known, those attempting to count the deaths of irregular migrants at sea have estimated that only one in three bodies are ever recovered.

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