REFUGEE

Australia expects to take some of the 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers that left a customs ship moored in Indonesian waters after a standoff lasting more than four weeks, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said.

“The exact numbers we won’t know for awhile,” Evans said in an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. today. No special deal was offered to the ethnic Tamils to persuade them to leave the Australian vessel and enter an Indonesian immigration detention center for processing, he said.

The Sri Lankans were picked up from their damaged boat by the Oceanic Viking customs vessel in Indonesia’s search and rescue zone last month. They had refused to leave the boat without assurances their claims for asylum would be swiftly processed. Twenty-two of the refugees left the boat last week and the remaining 56 yesterday.

There is no guarantee they will end up in Australia and may be resettled in another country that accepts refugees, including Canada and New Zealand, Evans said.

Under a proposal to the group, legitimate refugees on the Oceanic Viking would be resettled, mostly in Australia, in as little as four weeks, the Australian newspaper reported Nov. 13.