Sri Lankans leave Oceanic Viking

About 40 of the final 56 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who have spent the past month on
the Oceanic Viking have left the ship.
Efforts were continuing on Wednesday afternoon to transfer the last of the Tamils to
waiting ferries that would take them to shore at the Indonesian town of Tanjung
Pinang.
The 46 men, five women and five children would then be transported to an
Australian-funded detention centre where they would join 22 men who left the ship on
Friday.
The Australian customs ship would then be free to return to Australia, one month
after first picking up the 78 asylum seekers.
Indonesian immigration officials were busily preparing the detention centre for the
group's arrival.
But the centre's head, Sugiyo, rejected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's claim that women
and children would be housed in a separate facility.
Sugiyo said the women and children would most likely be housed in a separate area
inside the detention centre, not a nearby building.
The only other facility available, he said, was immigration quarantine, where
conditions were extremely poor.
Under a Rudd government deal to entice the Sri Lankans off the ship, those among the
78 already assessed as refugees will be resettled in another country, most likely
Australia, within weeks.
The others will be processed quickly and, if found to be genuine refugees, resettled
within three months.
Australia picked up the Tamils in international waters inside Indonesia's search and
rescue zone last month. They had been trying to reach Christmas Island.