By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia said on Wednesday it would enlist indigenous Aboriginal rangers to patrol its vast and remote northern coastline amid an influx of illegal fishing boats that have also been used by people smugglers.
The Australian Border Force said it had boosted aerial surveillance and intercepted 20 foreign fishing vessels since launching an operation in the Northern Territory in December, after several incidents in 2024 where asylum seekers were discovered coming ashore in remote Arnhem Land.
Although the number of boat arrivals is small, compared to 15,000 asylum seekers travelling to Australia by boat annually before the country set up an offshore processing scheme, the issue has become heated in the lead-up to a national election due by May.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the federal government would equip Indigenous rangers to patrol the 10,000-km (6,214-mile) northern coastline.
“No-one knows that sea country better than those rangers,” he told reporters in Darwin.
Australia does not allow asylum seekers who arrive by boat to settle in the country, instead flying them to the Pacific Island nation of Nauru for assessment of refugee claims, in a process criticised by the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Around 30 asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia’s north by boat since July, including 13 in November, have been transferred to Nauru, according to Border Force statements. A boat carrying 74 people was turned back in July.
“Anybody who claims that our borders are somehow open is lying,” Burke said.
Burke travelled to Australia’s western neighbour Timor Leste on Monday to discuss people smuggling and irregular migration, before arriving in the city of Darwin on Wednesday to meet with the Indigenous Northern Land Council.
The Australian Fisheries Management Authority said earlier in January that 110 Indonesian fishers had been prosecuted in Darwin Local Court since July 2024.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Editing by Sonali Paul)
Comments