Tamils die fleeing Sri Lanka

A boatful of asylum seekers, believed to be Tamil refugees, was detected off the shores of Australia last week, capsizing before it had reached land.

Twelve civilians aboard the boat are believed to have drowned and 27 were rescued.

The boat is believed to have set sail from the Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, with the ultimate destination being Australia.

The surviving asylum seekers  were sent to a detention centre on Christmas Island,  off the northern coast of Australia.

After 24 hours a rescue operation to find further survivors was called off.

“Medical advice received indicates that there is no further chance of survivability,” Australian Home Minister Brendan O'Connor said in a statement. “This is a tragic incident.”

The refugees were rescued by a trawler and bulk freighter which responded to their distress signals.

They arrived to find debris from the boat strewn about the water and a "significant" number of the passengers in the ocean.

Two teenage boys aged 13 and 14 were among the missing, feared dead after the boat capsized near the Cocos Island.

One body was recovered and a two more were sighted in the water, international media reports said.

Meanwhile, 245 asylum seekers are still aboard a boat boarded West Java port of Merak in Indonesia, which was first detected on October 17. Since then, they have refused to disembark from the boat and step foot onto Indonesian soil.

Ten refugees have come off the boat for urgent medical reasons.

"We all wish to come to Australia," said 30-year old Anton speaking from an Indonesian hospital.

The group’s spokesman Alex, has told reporters that he was deported from Canada in 2003, but was reluctant to talk about his past, fearing for the safety of his wife and children, who are still in Sri Lanka.

He said that he would "hold the Australian government and the Indonesian government responsible for their murders," if anything were to happen to them.

Many of the refugees on board the boat have said that they were held in the infamous Menik Farm IDP camp.

"They are deeply traumatised and fear being returned to camps if they hand themselves over to the Indonesian government,” said Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne.

“Three people from this boat have been hospitalised and five people with little children have left the boat because of the children. Last week water was restricted and no medical care given for conjunctivitis which was sweeping through the boat. Over 30 cases reported on Friday," she said.

"IOM and Indonesian officers are pressuring the people to disembark. However after living in camps in Sri Lanka these people are not ready to commit to camps in Indonesia," she added.