Australia ups capacity to handle boatpeople

Australia said Sunday it would increase the number of beds at its main immigration centre to cope with an influx of boatpeople, amid concerns about growing numbers of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

The Christmas Island facility, where all boatpeople are taken to be assessed and detained by Australian authorities, can currently accommodate about 1,400 people but has strained to cope with recent arrivals.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Evans said extra accommodation would be installed at the remote Indian Ocean island off northwest Australia before the end of the year.

"It will probably increase it to about 2,000, 2,200," he told AFP.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said expanding the Christmas Island centre was the most effective way of dealing with increased numbers of asylum seekers.

"We certainly worry that we will see a continuation of an influx of boats," he told Channel Nine television.

"We know that with additional conflict in our region, particularly Sri Lanka, but also heightened conflict in Afghanistan, that the push factors to send displaced people our way are there."

Some 1,650 boat people have arrived in Australia this year, many risking the perilous sea voyage in unsafe vessels and in the hands of people smugglers.

The Christmas Island announcement comes as the future of 78 ethnic Tamil Sri Lankans who are refusing to leave an Australian ship moored on Indonesia's Bintan island remains undecided.

Australian media reported Sunday that some of the migrants, who were rescued by Australia in Indonesia's search and rescue zone, had already been classified as refugees and had been living in Indonesia for up to five years.