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At first-hand with asylum seekers

We read about the hazards of those seeking asylum and the risks they take to do so - and oft times the tragedy that befalls them - but all credit to a journalist from The New York Times and a photographer for actually being on board a boat which started out in Indonesia headed for Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.    Christmas Island "belongs" to Australia but has been excised as part of Australia for the purposes of those seeking asylum in Australia.   Yep, it's part of Australia - but not!


"Our destination was an Australian territory, more than 200 miles across the Indian Ocean, called Christmas Island. If the weather is amenable, if the boat holds up, the trip typically lasts three days. Often, however, the weather is tempestuous, and the boat sinks. Over the past decade, it is believed that more than a thousand asylum seekers have drowned. The unseaworthy vessels are swamped through leaky hulls, capsize in heavy swells, splinter on the rocks. Survivors sometimes drift for days. Children have watched their parents drown, and parents their children. Entire families have been lost. Since June, several boats went down, claiming the lives of more than a hundred people."

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