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.