Vietamese migrants found near Flores

Vietamese migrants found near Flores

Joanne Collins, Reuters, Bali

A boat carrying more than 40 Vietnamese migrants heading for Australia has been found near the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, Australian and Indonesian officials said on Wednesday. People smuggling and illegal migrants have been thorny issues for Canberra and Jakarta in the past two years, but Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia was "very happy" with the way Indonesia had handled the boat matter. "We understand that the boat has come to an island in the Flores region and that Indonesian authorities and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are going to meet up with the people from the boat, and the IOM and the Indonesians will process them in the appropriate way," Downer told reporters on the sidelines of a regional people smuggling conference on the resort island of Bali. Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said he had heard the boat had been located but did not have details. "Yes, I heard this unofficially, but to us the flows of these boat people from Vietnam is an anomaly," Wirajuda told a news conference at the end of the two-day conference. Indonesia is a favoured staging post for illegal migrants, especially from the Middle East, but Wirajuda said there had not been any new flows of illegal migrants to the archipelago since last year's people smuggling conference in February. The boat-load of Vietnamese migrants near Flores is one of two located in Indonesian waters in the past two weeks. The other, with 31 migrants on board, was found last week on a tiny Indonesian island near Singapore. Australian Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock described those on board as "opportunistic" voyagers. "What we know is that the two vessels involved have not been organised people smuggling or trafficking," Ruddock said, adding the boat found near Flores was not fit for further travel. Asked whether finding the boat resulted from Indonesian authorities working with the Australian police, Downer said: "We don't have a formal written agreement, no, but we have obviously made contact with the Indonesians some time ago about these boats and, as we explained, we want to handle this in a low-key way and we are very happy with the way the Indonesians have handled it."

REUTERS

GetRTR 3.00 -- APR 30, 2003 14:14:16