Another asylum boat arrives at Cocos Islands

Updated

June 13, 2012 17:58:01


An asylum seeker boat (file)

Photo:

An asylum seeker boat floats in waters near the Cocos Islands. (file) (file photo: Customs and Border Protection Service)

Residents of the Cocos Islands, off the north-west coast of Western Australia, are concerned about the increasing number of asylum seeker boats arriving at the islands.

Border Command says another boat carrying 35 asylum seekers, arrived today.

Locals say it is the fourth to turn up at the islands in five weeks.

A number of asylum seekers left the islands yesterday bound for processing at Christmas Island detention centres.

The new arrivals will be housed at the Cocos Club, the only building on the islands large enough to accommodate them.

Club president John Clunies-Ross says the asylum seekers will be given health checks.

“They’ll get an immediate health check just to make sure no one’s really crook,” he said.

“They’re showered, given clean clothes, fed, given identity and then shipped out to Christmas Island.”

He says the islands used to receive about one boat a year and the increase is disruptive.

“It affects people in the private sector, people in the school you know teachers, the SES, it goes on,” he said.

“This is not standard, we’ve had I guess one a year for the last two, three years but this is well over the top,” he said.

The Federal Opposition’s Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison has blamed the Gillard Government for the increase,

“This Government is the magnet for boat arrivals,” he said.

Mr Clunies-Ross says he believes the asylum seekers will be moved off the islands and into detention on Friday.

Topics:
refugees,
cocos-keeling-islands,
perth-6000

First posted

June 13, 2012 16:51:53

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