This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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Customs and Border Protection have confirmed one more asylum seeker boat has been capsized en route to Australia with an estimated 150 people onboard including women and children. “Current reports are that one deceased person has been recovered,” it said in a joint statement with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said 125 have been rescued and at least one person was drowned. It was
The asylum-seeker boat’s crew used a satellite phone to make a distress call to the Australian Federal Police at 6.17am, and the first merchant vessel arrived on the scene about 10.30am. The Indonesian authorities said the asylum seekers damaged their own boat deliberately but the Australian authorities did not comment on or confirm that claim as yet. AMSA was co-coordinating the search and rescue effort, even though the boat went down in Indonesia’s search and rescue area. The boat was assumed to have got into trouble just 13 nautical miles from where another boat turned over last week, leaving 90 people dead.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard previously said that there were approximately 123 and 133 people on board the boat. She said that no one was in the water when the first merchant ship arrived. But afterwards, people went into the sea as the boat started sinking, prompting the crew of a merchant ship to arrange life rafts.
This incident ignited a political storm in Canberra. On this, Ms Gillard moved to bring on a parliamentary debate about independent MP Rob Oakeshott’s bill which would let the government proceed with its controversial Malaysia people-swap deal, which is opposed by the coalition. Ms Gillard said, “I believe the time for the party divide on this issue is at an end.” She added, “We have seen too much tragedy.”
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