Aussies intercept asylum seekers

Aussies intercept asylum seekers

CANBERRA (AP): The government said on Tuesday it had
intercepted another boatload of about 230 Middle Eastern asylum
seekers off the northwest coast of Australia.

The vessel, a rickety Indonesian inter-island ferry, was
detected by aerial surveillance late Monday, Justice and Customs
Minister Sen. Chris Ellison said in a statement.

A customs boat with support from a navy ship escorted the
ferry to the Ashmore Islands, an Australian territory 320
kilometers off Australia's northwest coast.

Ellison said customs officers would board the ferry to clear
the people, assess the boat's seaworthiness and arrange its
destruction at sea to reduce the chance of disease being brought
into Australia.

The new boat load of asylum seekers followed the arrival
Thursday on a remote Australian island of a leaky wooden fishing
boat carrying 348 people- mainly Iraqis and Afghanis - also
arriving via Indonesia.