الرئيسية
A heavily overloaded boat packed with around 250 Iranians and Afghans
seeking new lives in Australia sank off Indonesia, with bad weather and
high seas hampering rescue efforts Sunday, officials said.
The
fibreglass vessel was following a well-worn, and occasionally
disastrous, route from the southern coast of Java to the remote
Australian territory of Christmas Island when it sank on Saturday,
officials said.
So far rescuers have plucked 33 people -- 30 men, a
woman and two children -- from the sea despite strong currents and
waves of up to five metres (16 feet), said a search and rescue official
in Trenggalek district.
"The survivors had been hanging on to six
life vests and floating in the sea for around five hours before
fishermen found and rescued them," the official, Kelik Purwanto, told
AFP.
The boat was carrying around 250 people when it sank 40
nautical miles off Prigi beach in the east of Java island on Saturday
afternoon, he said.
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.
Australia
has warned refugees against attempting to come by boat, with officials
often citing a December 2010 shipwreck at Christmas Island in which
close to 50 people are believed to have died in wild seas.
Purwanto
said that around 60 rescue officials had been deployed to comb the sea
to look for the passengers still missing from Saturday's disaster.
Survivors
said that they and the other passengers came from Iran and Afghanistan,
and they had paid agents between $2,500 and $5,000 to seek asylum in
Australia, according to Purwanto.
"According to them, they had
flown from Dubai to Jakarta and took buses to an unidentified location
in Java to board the boat. They said they were heading to Christmas
Island," he said.
"They had been out at sea for 23 to 25 hours.
They might have washed up on nearby islands, so we must try to rescue
them as soon as possible," he added.
seeking new lives in Australia sank off Indonesia, with bad weather and
high seas hampering rescue efforts Sunday, officials said.
The
fibreglass vessel was following a well-worn, and occasionally
disastrous, route from the southern coast of Java to the remote
Australian territory of Christmas Island when it sank on Saturday,
officials said.
So far rescuers have plucked 33 people -- 30 men, a
woman and two children -- from the sea despite strong currents and
waves of up to five metres (16 feet), said a search and rescue official
in Trenggalek district.
"The survivors had been hanging on to six
life vests and floating in the sea for around five hours before
fishermen found and rescued them," the official, Kelik Purwanto, told
AFP.
The boat was carrying around 250 people when it sank 40
nautical miles off Prigi beach in the east of Java island on Saturday
afternoon, he said.
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.
Australia
has warned refugees against attempting to come by boat, with officials
often citing a December 2010 shipwreck at Christmas Island in which
close to 50 people are believed to have died in wild seas.
Purwanto
said that around 60 rescue officials had been deployed to comb the sea
to look for the passengers still missing from Saturday's disaster.
Survivors
said that they and the other passengers came from Iran and Afghanistan,
and they had paid agents between $2,500 and $5,000 to seek asylum in
Australia, according to Purwanto.
"According to them, they had
flown from Dubai to Jakarta and took buses to an unidentified location
in Java to board the boat. They said they were heading to Christmas
Island," he said.
"They had been out at sea for 23 to 25 hours.
They might have washed up on nearby islands, so we must try to rescue
them as soon as possible," he added.