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Boat turnback concerns Jakarta

Sixteen asylum seekers who almost landed in Christmas Island last week are in immigration detention in Indonesia, prompting Jakarta to demand answers from Canberra.

Deputy General of Multilateral Affairs Hasan Kleib says they had no notice of the boat coming back and he only learned of it when news broke that locals in West Timor discovered the men on Thursday night.

He was to seek an explanation from Australia’s ambassador for people smuggling issues, Andrew Goledzinowski, who was in Jakarta on Friday for a regional meeting on asylum seekers.

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“We are concerned when some country like Australia knows it and rather than informing us, working with us, takes a unilateral action and pushes back the boat,” he said.

“I don’t want to see his incident become a stumbling block or a blockage for any cooperation.”

The men were taken to detention at Kupang on Friday, one week after almost making it to Christmas Island and then going into Australian custody, after which time authorities would not comment on their fate.

East Nusa Tenggara Police spokesman Jules Abraham Abast says the men – two from Nepal, one from Pakistan, 13 from India and the Indonesian “captain” – were detained for four days before being returned to Indonesia on a different boat called “Farah”.

The red and white vessel ran out of fuel and stranded near Tablolong on Thursday afternoon.

The Indonesian man, a 31 year old fisherman with the initials “GR” was held for questioning.

The police spokesman said they had found no evidence the Indonesian man was given cash by the Australians who intercepted them, as it’s alleged others were in May.

The asylum boat turn-back policy frustrates Indonesia, as well as Australia’s decision one year ago to close resettlement to asylum seekers arriving in Indonesia after July 2014.

Then immigration minister Scott Morrison described the move as “taking sugar off the table”.

The effect has been what Jakarta terms “a bottleneck” that is placing strain on communities where asylum seekers and refugees spend years in waiting.

Mr Kleib says the discussions on Friday with “source countries” are important to save lives by stopping people getting on boats in the first place.

“At the end of the day what we are discussing is lives, those who are in need who left their country,” he said.

Following Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s well-received Jakarta visit came reports the countries were discussing an island camp but Indonesian officials say this is not under consideration.

At April last year, there were 10,623 people on the UNHCR’s books in Indonesia. It now has a total 13,244 “persons of concern” – 5798 refugees and 7446 asylum seekers.

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