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 route to Australia, even as two were taken to hospital.
Rudd said the 255 migrants, many of whom were refusing to leave the boat until they were granted refugee status in a third country, would have to be processed through normal channels by UN officials in Indonesia.
That process could take months or even years, but Rudd said any compromise would encourage human trafficking.
"It is irresponsible for any prime minister of Australia to send out a message of positive encouragement to people smugglers in the region," he told Australia-based Fairfax Radio.
"It creates an industry which is one of the vilest on Earth and, secondly, it is potentially very dangerous for people putting their lives into the hands of such people."
Two of the asylum seekers were hospitalized with symptoms of dehydration as about 150 men on the boat continued a hunger strike for a second day. They claim to have fled Sri Lanka's war-torn north and face persecution back home.
Indonesian immigration and Navy officials were trying to negotiate with the migrants, who were intercepted in the Sunda Strait on Sunday, reportedly after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono received a tip-off from Rudd.
Rudd expressed sympathy but remained unmoved after being played a recording of one of the migrants, a 9-year-old girl, pleading for them to be given asylum.
The migrants' spokesman, who called himself Alex, brought the girl out again on Friday to speak to the mainly Australian media assembled at the dock in Merak, Banten.
"They always kidnap, kill, shoot. I am scared," she said, referring to the situation in her homeland. Alex has told reporters the asylum seekers are in danger in Sri Lanka in the wake of the government's defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels, although he denies they are separatists.
"We are very weak and we don't know how long we can survive like this," he said.
Alex earlier threatened to set fire to the boat, before withdrawing the threat.
Harry Purwanto, the immigration chief in Banten, said that the boat was roughly divided between those who wanted to accept temporary accommodation and go through the normal refugee processing, and those who favored continuing the standoff.
Those on hunger strike had "refused to leave the boat unless there's a guarantee that refugee status will be given to them by the UNHCR," he added, referring to the UN refugee agency.
The arrival of about 1,650 asylum seekers by boat to Australia this year has placed pressure on Rudd over his government's moves to ease the tough policies of his conservative predecessor, John Howard.