Boat with asylum seekers hijacked: Vessel heading for Australia
JAKARTA, Oct 26: About 170 Iraqi asylum seekers have hijacked a commercial vessel off Indonesia and are possibly heading for Australia after some of the crew fled overboard, the Indonesian navy said on Friday.
Navy spokesman First Admiral Franky Kayhatu said one crew member had been picked up floating in the sea and had told naval officials the ship left eastern Makassar city on Sulawesi on Wednesday and was heading south.
“The navy found a man floating in the sea in a life-vest. According to him he is a crew member from a ship called the KM Bontang which was hijacked on October 24 by a group of Iraqi refugees who want to go to Australia,” Kayhatu told Reuters.
“It’s captain fled using a small boat. We haven’t found him,” Kayhatu said by telephone from Jakarta, adding the navy did not know the current location of the ship.
The hijacking marks the latest twist in a growing regional crisis over the thousands of Middle Eastern and Afghan asylum seekers who embark on the treacherous sea journey to reach Australia from Indonesia each year.
Last Friday a refugee boat sank off the Indonesian coast, killing more than 350 Iraqi immigrants. Police chief General Bimantoro earlier said two police officers had been arrested for protecting the smugglers who organised that ill-fated boat.
One refugee ship also ran aground in eastern Indonesia on Sunday while another one made it to Australia’s Ashmore Reef earlier this week.
A second navy spokesman, Major Maman Sulaeman, said the hijacked ship was called the KM Sinar Bontang and was carrying some 170 refugees from Iraq. It was unclear if the boat was mainly used to transport passengers or cargo.
Sulaeman said the hijacking took place in the Flores Sea somewhere between the Sulawesi island chain and the resort island of Lombok in eastern Indonesia. Kayhatu quoted the rescued crew member as saying the boat had been originally bound for Lombok.
Asked if the boat was registered as a commercial vessel, Sulaeman said: “Yes. It had 170 refugees from Iraq on board.”
An official at Makassar port told Reuters a vessel with the same name was recorded as having left the city’s port on October 10 and carried no passengers.
“It was a wooden-made and motor-powered vessel, it was registered to leave for Mataram (city) on Lombok,” Rahman, the official told Reuters by telephone from Makassar, 1,400 km (875 miles) east of Jakarta.
TWO POLICE ARRESTED: Only 44 refugees survived last Friday’s tragedy off Indonesia’s Java coast, which prompted Jakarta to announce it would host a meeting over the refugee crisis next month with Australia and other countries in Southeast Asia.
Police chief Bimantoro said the two police officers involved in the tragedy were arrested in Riau province on Sumatra island.
Media reports have quoted survivors who said police pointed guns at frightened immigrants who wanted to get off the boat because they feared it was unsafe for the trip to Australia.
“I have checked the report from Riau police that two members have been arrested and now we are investigating this. They were acting as guards,” Bimantoro said when asked if any police had been involved in last Friday’s tragedy.
Two survivors interviewed by Reuters said armed men in uniform were present when the boat left Sumatra. Other survivors have said only the people smugglers were there.
Bimantoro also said police were searching for four people smugglers believed to have organised the boat trip. He said one was a Malaysian citizen, one Iraqi and two Indonesians.—Reuters
