Rizky Amelia, Medan – As soon as they hear the clank of the metal fence opening, dozens of occupants of the Belawan immigration detention center rise from their seats.

They study the new arrivals, a group of journalists from Jakarta accompanied by the head of the detention center, Muhartono.

Minutes into their visit, the journalists find themselves surrounded by the men, women and children incarcerated at the center, asylum seekers from countries ranging from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to Burma, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

With each passing week their numbers balloon, Muhartono says, further cramping the already crowded 30-room facility, which was meant to hold no more than 120 people.

"There are already 141 people in here. Later this afternoon 17 more [asylum seekers] will come from Lampung," he said. The rooms only measure two by 2.5 meters, with some occupied by as many as six people.

Muhartono said he was not worried by the many people coming in, but was anxious about the small number of people going out. The center, north of Medan, houses people picked up in Sumatra for illegally entering the country. "You can imagine just how cramped everything is," he said.

Some of the detainees have been at the center for two years, but there is little Muhartono can do except wait for them to be assessed by the International Organization for Migration. Then there is the longer wait for the asylum seekers to be accepted by the final host countries.

Indonesia is usually the final stop for asylum seekers bound for Australia. Once here, they hook up with people smugglers who take them on the treacherous journey across the Indian Ocean to the small islets off the coast of northern Australia, usually by rickety wooden boats.

In its report "Asylum Levels and Trends in Industrialized Countries," the United Nations said that 11,510 asylum seekers arrived in Australian territory last year. That is a 9 percent drop from 2010.

The Medan detention center's chief of security, Yusuf Umar Dani, said only about 1 percent of the asylum seekers at the center ever got to leave.

"Suppose there are 300 people [detained in Indonesia]," he said. "Only three will get to Australia. There are real asylum seekers and those posing as them. For example, if there is a conflict in one part of a country, people come here from other parts of the same country where there is no conflict. They claim to be asylum seekers. That is just wrong."

Those not granted asylum-seeker status by the IOM, Yusuf said, will be sent back to their countries. But he said that even that process was slow.

Yusuf said that many of the asylum seekers lived better in the detention center than in their own countries. They eat twice a day and receive clothes and other items donated by nongovernmental organizations.

Muhartono said the detainees also got to play sports and learn English and Indonesian. They are even allowed to travel out of the center. But even with the freedom and facilities they enjoy, some have tried to escape, with the hopes of getting to the country they were originally aiming for.

A telephone has been provided for the detainees to contact their families back home. But some are said to use the phone to try to contact people who might be able to smuggle them to Australia.

Some of the detainees have been cheated and abandoned by smuggling syndicates and almost all of them have heard similar stories, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

Ismatollah Hozaini, a detainee who has been at the center for eight months since fleeing Afghanistan, said he had paid about $12,000 to get to Australia. The syndicate got him as far as Indonesia but that's where it left him, taking his money.

"I fled because it is no longer safe [in Afghanistan]," he said, adding that he would rather stay at the center than return home. "What else can I do?" he asked.