An operation to transfer more than 400 asylum seekers to an Australian naval troopship has been completed. The mainly Afghan asylum seekers were transferred from the cargo vessel on which they had been stranded for the past eight days.
The operation took place off Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The troopship is now taking the refugees to Papua New Guinea. From there, they will travel to New Zealand and to the Pacific island state of Nauru, where their applications for asylum will be dealt with.
The way for the transfer was cleared when an Australian Federal Court lifted an injunction that had been won by civil liberties groups. They had sought to prevent the removal of the refugees from Australian territorial waters until their claims for asylum had been processed.
A lawyer for the civil liberties groups, John Riordan, said that the ruling did not resolve the refugees' fate. The asylum seekers have been at the centre of an international controversy since being rescued by the Norwegian freighter over a week ago.
Meanwhile, four Indonesian crewmen rescued with the refugees have been detained on Christmas Island. Police say that the four were brought ashore after the refugees had been transferred from the Norwegian freighter that rescued them, to an Australian navy ship. They are likely to face charges of human trafficking.
