More than 200 people were feared dead after a heavily overloaded boat packed mostly with Afghan and Iranian asylum-seekers sank off Indonesia en route to Australia, rescuers said yesterday.
Australia’s government called the sinking “a terrible tragedy,” but came under pressure from campaign groups, which said its tough approach to refugees was partly responsible for such disasters.
The fiberglass boat had a capacity of 100, but was carrying about 250 people when it sank on Saturday, 40 nautical miles (74.1km) off eastern Java, in heavy rain and high waves, Indonesian officials said.
Thirty-three survivors were plucked from the shark-infested waters, officials said, after the vessel sank along a well-worn — and occasionally lethal — route from Java to Australia’s remote Christmas Island.
Officials said there was little hope of finding any other passengers alive, which would make the sinking Indonesia’s deadliest migrant boat accident.
“We sent out five boats and three helicopters, but no survivor or body was sighted. It’s unlikely they were washed up on islands as the closest shore is 40 miles [64.4km] away,” district search and rescue official Kelik Purwanto said.
Purwanto said the accident was the “worst disaster involving migrant boats” to date.
“If we find no survivor, then this is by far the largest loss of life,” he added.
Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso earlier said “it’s very likely they have all drowned.”
“It’s impossible even for a good swimmer with a life vest to swim to shore safely in such extreme conditions. When boats sink like this, the bodies usually surface on the third day,” he said.
Bad weather, strong winds and waves of up to 5m hampered rescue efforts, with 300 rescuers including navy and police officers deployed to comb the sea for bodies.
One survivor, 17-year-old Afghan student Armaghan Haidar, said he was sleeping when a storm came up and began to rock the boat.
“I felt water touching my feet and woke up. As the boat was going down, people were panicking and shouting and trying to rush out,” he said ashore.
“I managed to swim out and hang on to the side of the boat with about 100 others. [There were] about 20 to 30 others with life jackets, but another 100 people were trapped inside,” he said.
Survivors were floating in the sea for six hours before fishermen rescued them, survivors and officials said.
The survivors are being kept at a community hall near Prigi beach, 640km southeast of Jakarta, and say they had official UN documentation to prove their refugee status. Survivors interviewed and local officials said most of the passengers came from Afghanistan or Iran, and they had paid agents between US$2,500 and US$5,000 to seek asylum in Australia.
Others claimed to be Iraqi, Pakistani, Turkish or Saudi nationals and that their papers were lost at sea.
Haidar said he flew from Dubai to Indonesia and boarded a boat in the province of West Java.
“We want to go to Christmas Island and live a better life in Australia,” he said. “There is nothing in Afghanistan. There’s a lot of terrorism. We couldn’t study, go to college, find jobs. There’s no future for us there.”
Thousands of asylum-seekers head through Southeast Asian countries on their way to Australia every year and many link up with people-smugglers in Indonesia for the dangerous sea voyage.
Christmas Island is a favored destination for people-smugglers, lying closer to Indonesia than Australia. Nearly 50 would-be migrants are believed to have died in wild seas during a shipwreck there in December last year.
Australia has failed in its efforts to set up a regional processing center in neighboring countries to reduce the flow of asylum-seekers heading to its shores.
The number of boatpeople arriving in Australia ballooned to almost 900 last month, with at least nine ships intercepted in Australian waters so far this month.
Ian Rintoul, coordinator of the Refugee Action Coalition, said any sympathy the Australian government or opposition expressed for those who died at sea would amount to “hypocrisy” until the parties adopted humane policies.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft