AUSTRALIA : RISING DEATH COUNT FROM BOAT CAPSIZING

Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese REPORT
28 Jun 2012

Another asylum seeker boat capsizes with 25 missing

When news came through early yesterday morning that an asylum seeker boat filled with women and children had capsized off the Indonesia waters, Christmas Island local and father of two, Kamar Ismail experienced grief and a feeling of utter despair.
"For anyone to die at sea is sad, but it is especially sad when some of those are children," he says.
Like many other locals, Kamar Ismail is deeply troubled by the second asylum seeker boat tragedy in less than two weeks and is still haunted by memories of another Wednesday morning 18 months ago when a flimsy boat carrying 90 asylum seekers was thrown against the jagged rocks of the Island.

Locals like Mike Foster tried desperately to help rescue
asylum seekers off Christmas Island in December 2010

Over the crash of splintering timbers and the roar of waves and wind as storms lashed the Island's rugged coast, there were frantic screams for help. But in the mountainous seas but on 15 December 2010 locals such as Kamar Ismail and Island electrician, Mike Foster were forced to watch helplessly as more than 48 men, women and children lost their lives.
"As the boat came in I saw a lady in the water pointing to the back of the boat and saying a man was holding a baby and shouting that the baby was dying. Then a big wave pushed the boat towards the cliff and suddenly everybody was in the water. I kept on looking for the baby the man was holding. But it was not there," he says.
Kamar cannot forget the man and the baby who had stood at the rear of the boat before being lost under the waves as the boat broke up and smashed against the rocks.
For Simon Prince, who operates the dive shop on the Island it was even more traumatic as he raced down the long jetty near Rocky Point where the boat foundered, desperately throwing whatever life jackets the shop had into the water in a bid to help those fighting for survival in the huge seas.

Kamar Ismail saw a man holding a dying baby
and then both disappeared as the boat broke up

Mike Foster also has vivid memories of that morning as well as later in the week when refrigerated containers were converted to temporary morgues. As the bodies of those who lost their lives in the tragedy were recovered, they were taken to these temporary morgues where newly-arrived teams from the Australian Federal Police began the difficult task of identifying the dead.
In the past week, the refrigerated containers serving as temporary morgues outside the island's small hospital are once again back on site. So too are increased numbers of the AFP.
"Survivors are unloaded onto the Island down near the stevedoring area by the detention centre which is closed off. So we don't see them but we can see when the bodies come in, when they are loaded into vans and trucks. We know what the refrigerated container means and that this is where recovered bodies are being taken," says Mike Foster of the 17 bodies recovered so far from last week's tragedy when an estimated 90 of the 210 aboard lost their lives.

Temporary morgues created
from refrigerated containers

So far as a result of yesterday's tragedy, 130 have been rescued. However only one body has been recovered and an estimated 25 missing.
"These tragedies touch the heart. No one wants people to die. Something has to be done," says Mike who criticises politicians on both sides for a policy that not only has failed to stop the boats but has done little to prevent more and more of these tragedies.
Karam Ismail is equally disturbed by the continuing loss of life.
"It is a sad thing and a very, very risky way of coming to this island," he says and like Mike and many others on the island blames the Government and Opposition for putting politics and next year's election ahead of the increasing number of deaths.
Since the Christmas Island shipwreck of 2010 almost 600 men, women and children have drowned during their perilous sea journey from Indonesia to Australia. However it is believed this figure could well be far higher as there are no records of the number of asylum seeker boats that leave Indonesia. Not picked up by radar, some with their human cargo of desperate people simply sink without a trace.

Stones with the names of those
lost serve as a makeshift memorial
to the 353 asylum seekers
lost at sea in 2001

"The situation seems increasingly hopeless and whatever locals privately think about asylum seekers and whether or not they agree with having a detention centre here on the island, all agree that these tragic and unnecessary deaths must stop," Kamar Ismail says.

Survivors land at Christmas Island and taken
by van to be assessed at the island's small hospital

Shared from ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY