"The 60 Indonesian children as well as 500 fishermen were arrested on different occasions. Six of them are from Rote Ndao District," Fahmi Jamalludin, a staff member of the Indonesian Consulate in Sydney, said here on Sunday.
According to Jamalludin, the 60 children were arrested by Australian authorities because they had trespassed the maritime border line between Indonesia and Australia.
"Most of the children were involved in smuggling illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries wanting to go to Australia," he said.
The Indonesian Consulate in Australia with the assistance of Australian lawyers have been trying to return them home.
"What we are doing now is to defend all Indonesian crew members by hiring Australian lawyers," he said.
"To help the children to return home, we need proof of their ages," he said.
The Consulate with the assistance of related parties were trying to speed up the process for their release and return to Indonesia, he stated.
Ose Lani, a child from Rote Ndao, who released and returned by the Australian authorities to Indonesia two weeks ago after having been jailed for trying to smuggle in illegal immigrants, said the children detained in Australia were victims of deception by syndicates wanting to smuggle in illegal immigrants to Australia.
The transactions regarding the costs of sending the immigrants to Australia were done by boat skippers, he said.
"We, the crew members, had no idea at all. We were just asked to cook for the immigrants on board the boats," Ose said.(*)
(f001/H-NG/S012)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
