Thirty asylum seekers have been flown from Christmas Island to Nauru, as Australia begins to implement its new offshore processing policy.
The Sri Lankan men arrived in the tiny Pacific nation early on Friday.
They will remain there until their claims for asylum have been processed and will be joined by more people as the camp is expanded.
Australia re-introduced offshore processing last month, after ending the practice in 2008.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said more transfers from Christmas Island - the closest part of Australian territory to Indonesia and home to a large detention centre - would follow.
He said that people-smugglers in the last few weeks had been "peddling lies", saying that "the Nauru processing centre wouldn't be established or that they could provide guarantees that people wouldn't be transferred there".
"The message is very clear: if you arrive in Australia by boat you can be taken from Australia by aeroplane and processed in another country," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
UP to 20 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers were last night preparing to leave the Oceanic Viking as early as tomorrow, in the first signs of an end to the standoff that began almost four weeks ago.
While Australian authorities remained hopeful of persuading all 78 of the Tamils to leave the Customs ship tomorrow, when the Oceanic Viking's permission to remain in Indonesian waters ends, there were reports last night that up to 20 of them would submit to health and identity checks today before being taken ashore to the Tanjung Pinang detention centre.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry official Sujatmiko said tonight that, by today, "hopefully some of them are ready to be verified".
The break in the impasse came as Kevin Rudd insisted no protests or threats by protesters would divert him from his policy on border security, even as Australian authorities confirmed they had offered to give the 78 Sri Lankans preferential treatment if they left the Oceanic Viking.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
Related Coverage
OFFER: 'Get off boat and you'll go to Australia'
LETTER: Message to the Oceanic Viking 78 End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Speaking in New Delhi, Mr Rudd said he had not been briefed on the offer to the asylum-seekers but expected "normal resettlement processes consistent with the UNHCR" would apply.
A written offer guaranteeing resettlement was presented to the 78 boatpeople earlier this week.
Published under Department of Immigration letterhead and signed by Australian diplomat Jim O'Callaghan, it promised those already declared refugees would be resettled within four to six weeks.
Those whose claims were subsequently successful would be resettled within 12 weeks.
The letter does not promise a particular country but sources close to the negotiations said the bulk - if not all - would end up in Australia.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans acknowledged Australia would take a "sizeable amount of the load".
He denied that the offer - which would see declared refugees processed well within the 90 days that those on Christmas Island must wait - amounted to special treatment.
But he did acknowledge that other refugees detained in Indonesia often had to wait much longer for resettlement.