A Senate committee yesterday heard that a lifeless body was spotted on a makeshift tyre raft before the Australian search for five Tamil asylum seekers off the Cocos Islands was called off.
The committee heard at least one person was sighted by Australian search aircraft before a later sea search that failed to recover bodies was aborted.
The Sri Lankan asylum seekers had cast themselves adrift after their boat ran out of food and water. Crew from a bulk carrier sent to the vessel’s aid believe the men were taken by sharks.
Yesterday, the head of Customs and Border Protection, Michael Carmody, said an Orion had seen a man from the air.
“They reported a body on one of the tubes,” he said. “It was motionless.”
A later search by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority located no bodies, he said.
Australian authorities first became aware the Sri Lankan boat was in distress after a passenger’s friend called the Australian Maritime Safety Authority from London.
Customs often received tip-offs from people overseas when boats failed to arrive at their intended destination, Mr. Carmody said.
But unlike the May incident, another boat missing since last October never reached Australia’s search and rescue waters and contact was not made with the boat directly.
In that instance, Customs says it did “everything it could possibly and reasonably do”, Mr. Carmody said.
That people-smuggling venture left Indonesia with more than 100 asylum seekers and was unusually large, he said.
“I can’t be sure what happened. The boat might have gone back to Indonesia, it might have sank,” Mr Carmody said.
Follow-up interviews by immigration officials on Christmas Island unearthed no evidence that any passengers survived.
The activist Hassan Ghulam said he had received calls from worried relatives in Kandahar, Quetta,Kabul and Bamyian. Others had called from the US,Canada, Malaysia and Indonesia, he said.
“It is not acceptable for Customs to say it does not know what happened,” he said. “If there is sad news, the families must be allowed to make funeral preparations.”
The Home Affairs Minister Brendan O´Connor said the journey underlined the dangers of taking a risky boat passage.
An air patrol did not detect any boat in distress, he said.– (The Age, Australia)
