"The tragic death of a young Tamil man on board the refugee boat at Merak was completely avoidable," said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

Australian citizens and community workers are deeply concerned for the welfare of 246 asylum seekers on board the boat at Merak's shores in Indonesia.

Jakarta – Fifteen of the Sri Lankan asylum seekers who spent weeks refusing to get off the boat that rescued them near Indonesia have left the country, a foreign ministry official said

Tom Allard, Jakarta – Hundreds of asylum seekers have escaped Indonesian immigration detention centres and boarded boats to Australia this year amid widespread bribe-taking by guards an

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Jakarta hopes to bring historic people-smuggling legislation before parliament as soon as next year, with penalties of up to 10 years' jail for those conv

Indonesia says it expects the 78 Tamil asylum seekers who spent almost a month on Australia's Oceanic Viking to start being resettled as early as next week.

Harlyne Joku – "They're being sent to a concentration camp." This is how a West Papuan spokesman for the Merauke group living in Port Moresby, Nicholas Balagaize, described the repatria

Nurfika Osman – Despite the raft of killings, abductions and other violence carried out by unidentified groups in Papua, the nation's eyes remain elsewhere, an activist said on Thursday

Cunding Levi, Jakarta – Papua New Guinea repatriated on Thursday 141 Papuans on Thursday as part of the program to return about 700 Indonesian citizens in the Papua New Guinea territory

Tom Allard in Jakarta and Ben Doherty in Tanjung Pinang – The Indonesian Government has reversed its policy to swiftly deport Sri Lankan asylum seekers refusing to get off a boat in Mer

Ten Sri Lankan women and children who came off the Oceanic Viking yesterday say they are locked up and unable to leave an Australian-funded detention centre in Indonesia.

Tom Allard, Jakarta – Indonesia is planning to deport Sri Lankan asylum seekers at Merak, including "Alex", the English-speaking spokesman for the group that has spent more than a month

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Tanjung Pinang – Kevin Rudd might have been given another week to solve his Oceanic Viking public relations disaster, but that doesn't mean Indonesia is very happy

Jakarta – Indonesia extended by a week on Friday a deadline for an Australian customs ship loaded with 78 protesting Sri Lankan asylum seekers to leave its territory.

Tom Allard, Tanjung Pinang (Indonesia) – The Indonesian Government is deeply unhappy with the notion of an "Indonesian solution" to the asylum seekers trying to come to Australia, calli

Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo, Jakarta – Indonesia on Friday gave an Australian customs boat another week to end a standoff with 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who are refusing to disembark on

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Tanjung Pinang, and Paul Maley – Senior Indonesian officials have rejected outright a claim by Kevin Rudd that women and children asylum-seekers aboard the Oceanic

Roselyn Ellison – Seventy-six people from the West Papuan community in Manus province will move back to their homeland, as part of the nationwide repatriation of refugees from the Indon

Sophie Black – The 255 asylum seekers docked at the port in Merak in West Java are still refusing to leave their boat and be processed by Immigration Officials.

Damien Kingsbury – As we learned from foreign minister Stephen Smith last night, there is now an agreement between the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and Indonesia's President Susilo Bamba

Ben Doherty, Lindsay Murdoch and Karuni Rompies – Indonesia will take the 78 asylum seekers on board an Australian Customs ship in a diplomatic breakthrough following talks last night b

Stephen Fitzpatrick in Merak and Patrick Walters – The Sri Lankan asylum seekers holed up on board a boat in Indonesia intend to end their two-day-old hunger strike and are considering

Tom Allard, Merak (Indonesia) – They are promised a bright future awaits, that the gods will take care of them, but the 31 Tamil children among the 255 asylum seekers moored in Merak ar

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday refused to be swayed by hundreds of Sri Lankan asylum seekers who declared a hunger strike after their boat was stopped in Indonesia en ro

The Indonesian embassy in Papua New Guinea has denied that West Papuan refugees who are repatriated to Indonesia will be in danger at the hands of the security forces when they return.

Sydney – About 260 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers detained in Indonesia have threatened to blow up their wooden boat if the navy forces them to disembark, an Australian report said on Wednes

It is understandable that some West Papuan refugees who have been in exile in PNG since the 1980's may want to return home to reunite with family members and in the hope things have cha

Jayapura – The first phase of the repatriation of Papuans from Papua New Guinea (PNG) is scheduled to begin by the end of this year, after all the facilities had been prepared.

Indonesia is currently undertaking a program to repatriate several thousand West Papuan freedom activists living in Papua New Guinea.

Jakarta – Dozens of unidentified men mobbed the Matraman Police station on Jl.

Ismira Lutfia – There is still no light at the end of the tunnel for Rohingya refugees now being housed in Aceh, as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees is still looking for

Tom Allard in Kuala Lumpur and Yuko Narushima – Indonesian authorities are bracing for a huge influx of boat people, anticipating as many as 10,000 asylum-seekers are waiting in Malaysi

Australian officials are doing what they can to secure the release of five Australians held in West Papua since last September, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

Steve Holland – Five Australians stranded in Indonesia for almost nine months believe the Australian government is not doing enough to secure their release.

Nurfika Osman & Christian Motte – The Puncak Jaya home of the Democratic Party's chairman in Papua was fired upon over the weekend, but it was unclear whether the attack was politic

Nurdin Hasan, Banda Aceh – Fifty-five Sri Lankans who had been housed in a warehouse since they drifted ashore in Aceh last week went on a hunger strike after being been moved to a pris

Hotli Simanjuntak and Rizal Harahap, Banda Aceh, Pekanbaru – Fifty-five boat people allegedly escaping political unrest in Sri Lanka reportedly arrived at a beach in Babah Leung village

Idi Rayeuk, Indonesia – The only solace for the almost 200 men living in a squalid refugee camp here is the freedom they now have to pray.

Sally Piri – The government will allow 400 Rohingya boat people in Aceh to stay in the province until a decision is made on where they will settle, presidential spokesman Dino Patti Dja

Tom Allard – Yunus Wainggai and his daughter Anike – two of the 43 Papuans granted asylum in Australia in 2006 – returned to Jakarta last night, ending a two week saga which followed th

Two more Papuans from a group who landed in Cape York two years ago are said to be seeking to return to Indonesia.

Angela Flassy, Jayapura – The return home from Australia of two Papuan asylum seekers was due to legal problems arising from the couples ongoing incidence of domestic violence – and not

Anton Aprianto/Heru Triyon, Jakarta – Two Papua residents who had asked for political asylum in Australia came to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) office for protect

Jakarta – Two Papuan asylum seekers today said they travelled to Australia seeking a university education, rather than asylum for human rights abuses.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says it won't resettle more than a hundred refugees from the Indonesian province of Papua to a third country.

The leader of a group of 43 Papuan asylum seekers now living in Australia says he has concerns for the long-term safety of two Papuans who have returned to the Indonesian province.

Two of the 43 Papuan asylum seekers at the heart of a diplomatic rift between Australia and Indonesia two years ago have returned to their homeland.

Mark Forbes, Jakarta – Several of the 43 Papuans who sparked a diplomatic crisis by seeking asylum in Australia want to return home, according to Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wira

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – An offer by a notorious Jakarta gangster to develop the site of a refugee camp in Dili has been accepted by the East Timor Government.

Richard Brunton – Concern has been raised about the poor living conditions among a group of Papuan refugees squatting in a public park in Papua New Guinea's capital.