Boat people get aid, continue trip to Australia
The Jakarta Post Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan
Forty-two Vietnamese boat people are to continue their journey to Australia after anchoring at the mouth of the Barito River in South Kalimantan province on Friday.
The 42 boat people left Vietnam bound for Australia on April 6, but had to stop in Banjarmasin after they ran out of fuel.
Their 15-meter boat entered the Barito River late on Friday, and security personnel on patrol found 19 men, 13 women and 10 children on board.
The security personnel asked them to anchor their boat so that they could check the boat people's identity documents as well as their health in case they were infected with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
An officer of Banjarmasin's river police, First Corporal Sugiarto, confirmed the report on Saturday. He said the boat people had been ordered to leave as soon as possible.
"We've agreed to raise some money and supply them with gasoline worth around Rp 3 million (about US$337), aside from food which we began to supply them with yesterday (Friday)," Sugiarto said.
PT Katan Prima Permai, a company located near to where the boat was anchored, was the first to provide the refugees with food, Antara said.
Security personnel kept a close eye on the refugees, banning anyone from embarking or disembarking.
Banjarmasin port administrator Zulretmika said the boat was unseaworthy, and lacked a navigation system and safety equipment. He added that it was too small to carry the 42 people on board.
"If we were to be governed by safety considerations, we wouldn't allow the boat to leave. But based upon security considerations, it's better that they leave as soon as possible," Zulretmika explained.
The boat people had departed from Soe Trang city, some 250 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh city. Before reaching Banjarmasin, the boat had also moored at Natuna in Indonesia's Riau province, also to take on fuel and food.
Vietnamese refugees started to leave their country at the end of the Vietnam war, when North Vietnamese communist troops defeated South Vietnam and its U.S. ally. South Vietnam's capital Saigon fell in 1975.
Many Vietnamese boat people head for Australia, which is also a popular destination for Middle Eastern refugees.
Indonesia is a key transit point for undocumented migrants on their way to Australia, raising the ire of the latter, which says that Indonesia has not been doing enough to prevent them getting to Australian shores.
The issue of undocumented migrants has sparked diplomatic scuffles between the two countries on a number of occasions.
In 2001, tension escalated as both countries refused to accept some 500 refugees on board a Norwegian tanker, which had rescued the refugees from a sinking boat.
A few months later, over 350 illegal migrants died in the Java Sea when their overloaded boat sank on its way to Australia.