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Jakarta: Sri Lankans on board a boat marooned in Indonesia for more than a week insist they will continue their journey to Australia if their boat is escorted back into international waters as planned by Indonesian authorities.
The 44 Sri Lankans, who were stranded in Aceh Besar on June 11 when their boat developed engine trouble, will be taken by bus to a nearby port in Lhoknga, and then escorted out of Indonesian territory.
But human rights organisations have urged the Indonesian government to allow the Sri Lankans, who are believed to be Tamils, to stay until they have been interviewed by the UN's main refugee agency, the UNHCR.
"The last thing we want to see in these types of situations is for governments to turn boats back into the open sea where it could be very dangerous for people who have been through so much already," said the UNHCR's Indonesia representative Thomas Vargas.
"There have been too many statistics already of people losing their lives in these types of situations on the high seas."
Mr Vargas said the UNHCR had requested access to the Sri Lankans at all levels of government but it had so far been denied.
"At this point we don't know if they are refugees or not or if they are seeking asylum."
The Geutanyoe Foundation, an Aceh-based humanitarian organisation, said many of the Sri Lankans were in possession of refugee identity cards issued by the government of Tamil Nadu, one of the 29 states of India.
"On World Refugee Day, which falls on June 20, we once again call on the government of Indonesia to grant immediate and unhindered access to UNHCR to meet the Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers in Aceh," it said.
One of the Sri Lankans, Sehuda, told Fairfax Media they would continue to Australia because they could not get citizenship in India.
"For the past 26 years we have stayed there, they did not give us citizenship," the 25-year-old said.
She said they wanted to go to Australia "for a better life and to earn money" and had paid their leader 150,000 "Indian money" (rupees) - the equivalent of $3000 - for a place on the boat.
Thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils live in Tamil Nadu, many of them in refugee camps.
The Geutanyoe Foundation said over the past two months there had been a renewed crackdown by the military in northern Sri Lanka, which had further deterred Sri Lankan refugees in India from returning to Sri Lanka.
"The fact there are a large number of women and young children on the vessel indicates strongly that they are seeking asylum, not only seeking employment, as has been suggested by several Indonesian observers.
"Decisions on this case seem to have been taken in haste, without carefully weighing the risks and consequences to human life in terms of safety and protection," the Foundation added.
The Foundation also warned that Australia had tough policies designed to prevent asylum seekers reaching its shores, including towing boats back to sea.
The 44 Sri Lankans, who include a seven-month-old baby and a pregnant woman, were allowed to temporarily disembark on the beach at Lhoknga in Aceh Besar at 4am on Saturday morning, after storms tilted the boat.
They were sheltered in tents on the beach and given food and drink.
This followed a tense stand-off between the Sri Lankans and Indonesian authorities, who had previously refused to allow anyone to disembark because they did not have travel documents or passports.
Last Thursday police fired a warning shot to "take control of the situation" after five Sri Lankan women, who had earlier called for a doctor to see a sick child and mimed pointing a gun to their temples, clambered ashore and sat on the beach.
Indonesian Navy Commander Kicky Salvachdie in the Acehnese city of Sabang, said once the Sri Lankan boat was pulled from the sand and taken to a port belonging to the SAI cement factory in Lhoknga, they would have the Sri Lankans board their boat.
"The Teluk Sibolga navy ship will escort the boat to our border. After that it's up to them," he told Fairfax Media.
House of Representatives member Nasir Jamil, who met the Sri Lankans on Sunday, said they had asked for a new ship to continue their journey.
However he said the strong winds and high waves made the journey risky and he suggested they instead be flown to Medan or Jakarta and placed in immigration detention centres.
"They are from Sri Lanka but they hold Indian refugee cards," Mr Nasir said. "We can't tell whether the card is the real thing or a fake. Their boat is using an Indian flag. We don't have sufficient information on them."
He said the Sri Lankans would accept their fate whether they stayed in Indonesia or continued their journey.
Indonesian Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said he had instructed authorities to treat the refugees well and provide them with food and drink and fix their boat.
"Their destination is not Indonesia and they don't want to stay in Indonesia, so I just ordered the Acehnese government to help them with logistics," he said on Friday.
Mr Kalla said it was out of Indonesia's control where the boat went when it left Indonesian waters.
"It is different to the refugees in Europe who wanted to go to Europe," Mr Kalla said. "Their destination is not Indonesia so there is no use sheltering them because they don't want to stay in Indonesia."
