20 Afghan ''boat people'' refugee dead, 16 survived and 5 missing in Riau, Indonesia.

20 Afghan ''boat people'' refugee dead, 16 survived and 5 missing in Riau, Indonesia.

Thousands of ‘’boat people’’ from conflict country of Afghanistan now trying to enter Indonesia. Usually they use a small boat through Malaysia, and Indonesia, before they will enter Australia. But, today, the Indonesian authority in Riau province found 20 Afghanistan ''boat people'' refugee dead in the coastal of Riau province, Indonesia.

About 16 Afghan peoples were survive, and other five refugee are still missing, and Indonesian Search and Rescue team still trying to find another missing refugee and probably still a lot of Afghan peoples perish in the Riau coastline areas. All of them are Afghan refugee coming to Indonesia via Malaysia. They are actually want to immigrate to Australia to find another economic heavenly country and to avoid a war conflict in home country.

Thousands of ‘’boat peoples’’; mostly from conflict countries such as from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Iraq trying to enter the Indonesian soil, and the Indonesian authority can not monitor all the entering activities, because they use small boat to enter via thousands of Indonesian island informally.

‘’We can not monitor all the boat people, because we have a hundreds kilometers bordering line in thousands islands. But, we believe there are thousands of peoples informal immigrants trying to enter Indonesia,’said Indonesian Police Chief Division on Overseas Labor and National Boundaries Central Bureau Interpol Minton Mariaty Simanjuntak in Jakarta, today.

Base on his latest offices report, Minton said, about 1.395 informal immigrants were coming from conflict countries such as Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Iraq. Mostly from Afghanistan about 736 peoples, from Myanmar 393 peoples and the third largest from Sri Lanka about 149 peoples.

Other informal immigrants are from China 51 peoples, Iraq 47 peoples, 10 peoples from Somalia, 8 peoples from Iran and 1 people from Yemen. ‘’Most boat peoples whose use small boat via Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam coastal, city of Medan, North Sumatera province, Jambi province, Lampung, Riau islands. The informal immigrants were also entered Indonesian soil via West Java coastal, Banten coastal province, and East Java coastal.

They also entered via Bau-Bau regencies in South East Sulawesi, Makassar in South Sulawesi and Jayapura city in Papua province. ‘’They are about 8000 refugee in Malaysia trying to enter Indonesia, because UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia will close in the near future. The problem is, most of the 8000 refugee whose still stay in Malaysia are not a Refugee status, so that is why they want to move into Indonesia,’Minton added.

Indonesia provided shelters for 391 Rohingya refugees in Sabangand Idi Rayeuk in the northernmost province of Aceh. The refugees were found drifting over the sea off Aceh waters by Indonesian patrol boats in January and February this year. Rohingya people live in Myanmar, near Bangladesh border area. The Muslim ethnic group has been considered as illegal settlers by Myanmar government. Meanwhile Central and South Asian Affairs Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs M Asruchin said that Indonesian government will Indonesia repatriated 114 Rohingya refugees to their origin country that is Bangladesh, after settling the verification program on refugees sheltered in Sabang regencies, Aceh province.

Other 277 refugee will go to process which country that they want to go The voluntarily repatriation program is assisted by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). and other 277 refugee will go to process which country that they want to go. Asruchin said that the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry had conducted verification of the Rohingya refugee who came ashore in Sabang and Idi Rayeuk, East Aceh district. Of the Rohingya refugee 114 were Bangladeshi citizens. The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR), Asruchin said, will take over the problem of the Rohingya boat people who refused to return to their country.

"If I am not mistaken the UNHCR will declared that those Rohingya peoples as refugees status, because they already in Aceh. Usually, a third country which is prepared to accommodate them will be sought," M Asruchin said. About 193 Rohingya were rescued by the Indonesian navy after they sailed into Indonesian waters near Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra on last January, 2009 and Indonesian government refused to offer asylum to any of this first group of refugee, saying that they are economic migrants and not refugees fleeing persecution.

Thailand's House committee on security said that international human traffickers were behind the massive influx of Rohingya boat people, who said that they were fleeing discrimination in Burma`s Arakan State. A rising tide of Rohingya refugees has been fleeing Burma to the neighboring countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Their numbers usually increase after November, when the seas are at their calmest. Many seek to escape the economic hardship of their restricted lives and turn to brokers to find a better life in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand Asia Pacific ministers met last months in Indonesia's resort island of Bali to discuss people smuggling and the plight of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority.

The two-day ministerial conference in Nusa Dua is being co-hosted by Indonesia and Australia and has attracted representatives from more than 60 countries. It is the third such meeting under the so-called Bali Process on people smuggling, people trafficking and related transnational crime. Hundreds of Rohingya migrants were rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters between December and February after being abandoned at sea with few provisions by the Thai military. Scores are feared to have died as they drifted in rickety boats for weeks before reaching land. Thailand, which is on the steering group of the Bali talks, has admitted it towed migrants out to sea but denies violating their human rights. It argues that the Rohingya -- Bengali-speaking Muslims who are denied citizenship rights in mainly Buddhist Myanmar -- are illegal economic migrants who pose a regional problem which must be solved multilaterally.