Survivors of Indonesian Boat Tragedy Face Uncertain Future

Of the estimated 250 asylum seekers on board the boat which capsized off the Indonesian coast in December, only 47 survived. But despite surviving the tragedy, they face an uncertain future.

Most of the asylum seekers are now being held in an Indonesian detention centre and do not know what will happen to them. Those in detention say that they still haven’t been visited by UNHCR. Five have asked to be returned to their homes in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey. The rest are desperate and say that will get on another boat if they can.

The conditions in the Indonesian detention centre are bad, say the asylum seekers. “I told them I was a refugee, that I had lost my whole family,” said Dawood Waladbegi from Iran. His wife and two children died in the boat sinking. “They spat on me, beat me and told me I was in their country now and it was their rules.”

Ali Mohammad, from Afghanistan, has a black eye and two deep gashes on his legs after the detention center guards beat him for trying to escape. Survivors also said they had been hit with electrical prods after a riot when they tried to break down the detention centre's fence and threw rocks at staff.

One of the survivors who said he will return home, Esmat Adine, 24, says that he signed the forms to return to Afghanistan because he could not face being held in the detention centre in Indonesia for two years while UNHCR decided whether he was a refugee or not. Even though he fears for his life if he is sent back to Kabul, he says he will try to go to Canada instead. “If Australia doesn't accept my request I will deport myself and go directly to Kabul airport (and) to Canada,” he said.

The asylum seekers are also traumatized by violent deaths of their families and loved ones. Ten-year-old Athena Hardani from Iran was on the boat with her father, mother and sister. She is one of only three children of the twenty on board to survive. The last thing she remembers before the boat rolled over is her little sister’s face. “I learned to swim in school, but my sister Mobina didn’t,” she says. “My heart is sad because my mother and sister are not here. I know nothing about them.”

Athena was rescued soon after the boat capsized by a passing fishing boat but her father, Mohammad, spent three days clinging to the wreckage of the boat before being picked up by a ferry which happened to be in the area. “We spent three days and two nights that way,” he said. “I thought, ‘I can’t leave my little girl in this harsh world, I must live. I owe her my life.’” The 36-year-old welder from Ahvaz in Iran said that letting go of his younger daughter, eight-year-old Mobina, was the hardest thing he has ever done. “I think my wife had a heart attack from shock, but there was nothing I could do for my little girl.” Father and daughter are believed to be the only related survivors and were reunited by Indonesian authorities on Friday 23rd December 2011.

Another survivor spoke of what he had seen while waiting to be rescued. “Most of the people came out through the windows and died in front of our eyes,” said Syed, a Pakistani Hazara. “I saw their dead bodies floating on the sea. We witnessed all of this madness, death in the water for six hours.”

Jamble, a 25-year-old local fisherman, owns one of the fishing boats that rescued the first group of survivors. He says that he spotted several dark dots from his small wooden fishing vessel and decided to look closer. He and his three crew members were horrified when they saw hysterical and exhausted people clinging to anything that floated. He says the survivors immediately started swimming towards his boat. “They were all fighting, scrambling to get into my boat,” Jamble said. And although he only had room for 10 more people he managed to get 25 asylum seekers onto the boat. He says many of them injured and were begging for water to drink. Those left behind were screaming and crying. “I'm so sad ... I feel so guilty, but there were just too many of them.” “I was worried if we took any more we'd sink too,” he said.

Some people travelled to Indonesia from Australia after the tragedy to see if any of the family or friends had survived. Jeremy Jafari, an Afghan Australian, broke down at Bhayangkara Hospital in Surabaya after police showed him a photo of the body of his sister. “I'm certain it's my younger sister,” he said, crying. “I saw a physical mark on her body.” He was supported by Said Abbas Sultani, another Afghan living in Australia who had also travelled to Indonesia to search for members of his wife's family from Iran.

The Indonesian Search and Rescue Agency said they had only been able to find 101 dead bodies from the accident. “We have not found anymore bodies over the past two days, so we decided to stop our search and rescue efforts,” they said.

The Australian Government blamed the tragedy on people smugglers. “They’re in the business of making money and they don’t care if it kills people or not,” the Home Affairs Minister said.

The boat journey from Indonesia to Australia is very dangerous. In November another boat, carrying about 70 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan capsized in the same area off Indonesia and at least eight people died.

Australian Government Still Wants to Pursue Malaysia Plan

The Australian Labor Party has voted to pursue a regional plan for the offshore processing of asylum seekers at its national conference.

There are two main political parties in Australia, the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia. Most people elected to Parliament are members of these parties. The current government is a Labor Party government and is led by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.

Members of the Labor Party met on the 3rd December to decide what policies they would have while in government. The Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, proposed that the Malaysia Plan should become a policy of the Labor Party. At the same time, he also proposed that the intake of UNHCR-registered refugees should be increased, from 13,750 to 20,000 a year. Both proposals were approved and are now Labor Party policies.

While they are Labor Party policies, they have not been voted on in Parliament so are not yet laws. Mr Bowen said “it's my view that we will be pursuing it through the parliament again, (but) we will need to see Mr. Abbott change his position if it is to pass the parliament.” Mr. Abbot is leader of the Liberal Party that wants offshore processing in Nauru, not Malaysia. The immigration spokesman for the Liberal Party said the government's asylum seeker policy had failed.

Several Labor party members criticized the proposals and the Malaysia Plan saying that the Plan violates Australia's international obligations as a signatory of the UN Refugee Convention. Refugee groups also attacked the proposals. The Refugee Action Coalition said “any plan to expel asylum seekers to Malaysia, or any other third country, is a fundamental (failure of) Australia's obligation to provide protection for who arrive on our shores fleeing persecution.” But Mr Bowen said Australia needs "to tackle this with a soft heart and a hard head."

The Government first proposed the Malaysia Plan in May this year in an attempt to deter people-smugglers. Under the Plan, 800 asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat would be sent to Malaysia to have their refugee applications processed but they would not be allowed to come to Australia, even if their applications were successful. In return for taking the 400 asylum seekers, Australia would accept 4,000 registered refugees from Malaysia. The plan collapsed in August after Australia's High Court said offshore processing was illegal under current Australian law.

The Government believes that processing asylum seekers in Malaysia will break the people smugglers business model and prevent even more asylum seekers from drowning at sea. At the conference, Mr. Bowen said refugees were risking their lives on boat journeys between Australia and Indonesia. Almost 50 asylum seekers drowned when their boat sank off the coast of Christmas Island a year ago. "There have inevitably been others that we simply don't know about," he said.

On the 2nd December the 59th and 60th boats this year carrying asylum seekers arrived in Australia. This brings the total number of asylum seekers arriving by boat this year to 3,802. There are approximately 500 more asylum seekers waiting for boats in Indonesia.  If they arrive this year, the annual total is set to exceed 4,000 for the third time since 1999.  This is less than the almost 7,000 who arrived by boat in 2010.

People Smugglers and Australia

A large number of asylum-seekers are trying to get to Australia using people smugglers.

People smugglers are individuals or groups who help people to get to another country. Often, this involves crossing country borders illegally or arriving in countries without the proper papers. People smuggling businesses have chains of smuggling agents who recruit people for the journey in countries like Afghanistan. Once people have paid for the journey they are then sent through trusted intermediaries in places like Dubai, Malaysia and Indonesia.

In the case of Australia, people smugglers are taking asylum-seekers to Australia by boat or helping them to go by plane. In the first half of this year 1,709 people sought asylum in Australia and about half of them arrived by boats organized by people smugglers.

Many of the asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia by boat travel through Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the closest countries to Australia and because Indonesian fisherman often fish near Australian waters people smugglers make use of fishing boats to take asylum-seekers. It is also very difficult to police the long Indonesian coastline and prevent fishermen from becoming crew on boats heading to Australia.  The fishermen are usually very poor.

Australia’s anti-smuggling laws do not distinguish between the organizers of people smugglers and fishermen; all are given at least five-year jail sentences if found guilty. But the fishermen are usually paid very small amounts of money, sometimes as low as 60 Australian dollars and may not even know that they will be breaking Australian law.

Mr. Bamba Maja is a fisherman from Indonesia.  He was one of four crew members on a 15-metre wooden fishing boat stopped by Australian patrol boats off Western Australia in March 2010. He said that he took the job to earn money to help his impoverished family. Mr. Maja was paid just $500 but the asylum-seekers on the boat had paid the people smuggler between $4,000 and $6,000 to make the dangerous journey. Mr. Maja was found guilty in an Australian court and sentenced to five years' jail. The people smuggler who organized the journey has not been tried.

International research shows that people smuggling businesses often develop in local and refugee communities and that people smugglers are motivated by both money and a desire to help people. Several UNHCR-registered refugees have spent time in Australian jails for people smuggling.

Mr. Shadi is an Iraqi born man who tried to get to Australia by taking a boat to Christmas Island. When this didn’t work, he became a people smuggler and for three years helped send asylum-seekers to Australia.

Mr. Shadi was the moneyman and recruiter. He says, “You don't need to sell this, or say things like government will pay you money if you go, no one says that. It's just that everybody knows Australia is much better than their own country. That is it. We know by TV, newspaper, internet, you know what the life is like here, Western life. We give you promise to get there and we will try again and again and again until we get you there. We give you promise to leave in two weeks and if it's longer than two weeks we will pay for your hotel, accommodation, whatever.” When Mr. Shadi was working as a people smuggler a boat usually cost $US20,000. The Indonesian fishermen crew and corrupt airport officials would cost another $US20,000 but each passenger would pay between $US2,000 to $US10,000.

Eventually Mr. Shadi became an undercover agent for the Australian Federal Police. Working with the police he testified against some of the biggest people-smugglers and explained the detailed routes people smugglers used to get people to Australia.

Research suggests that the laws that try to stop asylum-seekers crossing borders actually work to push asylum-seekers towards people smugglers. And because people smuggling is a regional problem it cannot be resolved by one country alone. Widespread co-operation is needed between the countries that are source countries, the countries that are transited through, and the destination countries.

Self-harm, Suicide, Sexual Assault and Drug Addiction in Australia’s Detention Centres

More evidence of the worsening conditions in Australian detention centres has been revealed in recent weeks with reports of suicide, self-harm, sexual assault and drug addiction.

A recent Parliamentary committee was told that there had been 289 cases of people hurting themselves in detention centres between July and October this year.  The committee was also told that 451 people had been diagnosed with a mental illness and 228 were receiving anti-psychotic medication.

The deteriorating conditions were highlighted this week by the death of a refugee from Sri Lanka.  The Tamil man in his mid-20s had been in detention for over two years and was recently moved to the family compound at Villawood Detention Centre.  He had been granted refugee status about three months ago.

The man was still being held in detention after being granted refugee status because the Government was waiting for an ASIO security assessment before releasing him.  The Refugee Action Coalition says that “there are over 1500 people, accepted as refugees, being held in detention waiting for ASIO security assessments.”

The Refugee Action Coalition said that the man’s suicide might have been triggered when his request to be released to attend a Hindu festival was denied.  "Whether that was the final straw, it's impossible to know," they said.

This was the sixth suicide in detention in Australia, and the fourth in the Villawood detention centre since September 2010.

Meanwhile an Australian news programme has provided a graphic account of life for people waiting in detention.  In interviews with staff and asylum seekers waiting to find out if they’ll be accepted as refugees detention centres are compared with prisons and even Guantanamo Bay.  It is claimed that mental illness, suicide attempts and self-harm are widespread and many people are unable to lead normal lives, even after they have been released.

A nurse at the Northern Detention Centre in Darwin said that teenagers who moved from the Darwin Airport Lodge to the Detention Centre when they turned 18 were at risk of sexual assault.  "There were a lot of allegations of sexual abuse going on there […] and I would suspect a lot of that was true by seeing the patients' reactions."

There have also been reports about the distribution of sedatives, sleeping pills and powerful painkillers inside detention centres.

One refugee says the pills are handed out by medical authorities inside detention centres.  The man, who spent nearly two years in detention, says the pills make detainees "like robots" and leave them with drug problems which need more treatment even if they are released into the community.

An Australian reporter says one of the biggest problems facing psychiatrists working in detention centres is a widespread culture of sleeplessness.  The journalist reported that mental health nurses in the detention centre use the medication to manage detainees.  She claims that medical company that looks after the mental health of people in detention cannot manage the numbers of people who are depressed and suffering from ongoing sleeplessness and insomnia.

“The short-term solution they've come up with is to prescribe large quantities of Mirtazapine which is actually an antidepressant.”

Some refugees, such as Afghan man Hamid Amiri, took anti-depressant medication while in Curtin Detention Centre and still requires medication despite having been released from detention more than a month ago.

Refugee advocates protested against mandatory detention at the Sydney office of the Department of Immigration on the 26^th of October.  The protest called for an end to offshore processing and for the release of asylum seekers from detention so their claims can be processed while they live and work in the community.  

The protesters also said they were supporting the rooftop protest of a Rohingyan refugee in Darwin’s Northern Detention Centre.  The man has been granted refugee status but has been waiting for two years for his security clearance.

Conditions in detention are likely to worsen as more people try to get to Australia by boat and are detained in already crowded detention centres.