Refugee Boat Timeline to February 5th

REFOULMENT!

5th FEB

No arrivals reported today.

BREAKING NEWS

I have just received information that “29 tamil asylum seekers to be involuntarily returned to Sri Lanka from Christmas Island today around 2pm.“

That has been amended. “Small modification:  maybe a departure around 6pm today.“

Further to that startling report came the following, “Starting last night “blanket approach” for all Sri Lankans: they choose to go through IOM otherwise involuntarily returned. No Nauru or PNG.”

And in a clarification of the confusion from last week, “2 boats arrived last week at Christmas Island but were turned back to Indonesia. 2 of the people on board were landed on CI for hospital treatment.“

REFOULMENT

Refoulment is a technical legal term relating to sending asylum seekers back into the danger they were fleeing. I received the above information just as was beginning a trip to Bunbury. I listen to the radio and during the travel-time I heard several reports about a new report on the Sri Lankan situation.

The New York Times has reported “New Inquiry on Sri Lanka Points to Possible War Crimes“

GENEVA — Senior Sri Lankan government officials and military officers may bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during an offensive near the end of the island’s civil war, according to a new investigation that backs calls for an international inquiry into those events.

The investigation, released on Tuesday by the Public Interest Advocacy Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy group in Australia, in consultation with prominent international jurists, went beyond other nonpartisan inquiries into the well-documented violence that punctuated the final days of that conflict, Asia’s longest civil war.

These are the very war criminals our Abbott Government has gifted a couple of patrol vessels so they can prevent people from fleeing the consequences of being Tamil.

Now the Abbott Government is forcibly sending Tamil refugees back to the land where their nemesis waits.

If we are going to keep some of our integrity we must remove ourselves from the UNHCR agreement since we are trampling on all its provisions!

It all seems quite acceptable for the Murderer, Morrison.

WEATHER FORECASTS

Christmas Island; The monsoon trough lies close to the island. Forecast for the rest of Wednesday 5 February A few showers and thunderstorms. Winds: West to northwesterly 5 to 10 knots. Seas: Around 1.0 metre. Swell: South to southwesterly 2.5 metres. Max 29 (BOM)

Cocos Island; The monsoon trough lies just to the north of the islands. Forecast for the rest of Wednesday 5 February Partly cloudy. Winds: Southeasterly 10 to 15 knots. Seas: 1.0 to 1.5 metres. Swell: Southerly 2.0 to 2.5 metres. Max 30 (BOM)

Cirabon; 29C, wind; 10-15 Kmh S-SE, showers est 47mm

The weekly figures I have collated.

This will be updated each week.

Holding this week’s update waiting on further info.

To find older information click here

(the dates are all “skewiff” so keep opening “new page” to find recent posts)