The image of his fellow passengers slowly succumbing toIndonesia's unforgiving waters is one that Habibullah -- the Afghan solesurvivor of an asylum-seeker boat tragedy -- will never shake off. The22-year-old, now trapped in limbo at a Jakarta detention centre, was en routeto an Australian territory in October to seek asylum with 33 other men, all ofwhom were lost to the Indian Ocean after the boat sank. "There was rainand strong winds, and on the second night there was a storm and we were swinginglike a pendulum," Habibullah said, now in Jakarta, where he has beendetained since his rescue. "In the morning we saw bodies floating in thewater surrounding the boat."
The small, 20-metre vessel lost power a few hours into thevoyage on October 26 from Java to Christmas Island, an Australian territorycloser to Indonesia than Australia. It sank a day later. Habibullah, who goesby one name, choked with emotion as he described how his fellow asylum seekersone-by-one were swept to their deaths after losing their grip on a rope thatheld them all together in the water. "I was waiting for my turn todie," he said of his harrowing four days at sea with no food and nothingto drink. He had paid almost $10,000 to smugglers in the hope of ending up inAustralia, which he calls "the land of freedom".
Having fled the unrest of Afghanistan, he had moved to thePakistani and Karachi, but lived in constant fear of attacks against him andhis Shiite Muslim community. When the boat lost power, one of the Indonesiancaptains abandoned ship, jumping into the ocean to leave only one captain and amechanic behind, he said. The vessel sank the next day, but the men remainedoptimistic they would be rescued or carried ashore by the ocean, Habibullahsaid. "People were thinking there will be a boat, there will be an island,there will be something that will save us."
But by the second day, the men's health had rapidlydeteriorated. A container ship and a large fishing boat passed by, but they didnot respond to the bright life jackets or the waving arms, nor did they hearthe men's cries for help.
On the fourth day, only Habibullah and two others were leftclinging, critically dehydrated with stabbing pains in their kidneys. The twoother men drowned later that day. Habibullah called out to one of them who hadpromised they would stay together until they found an island, but there was noresponse. Realising he was now alone, he swam away from the bodies indesperation, not expecting to live for much longer. He got lucky and a fishingboat passed nearby. Despite being unable to bring himself to wave at the boat,he was spotted and plucked from the the ocean. "I was crying when the guysaved me. I couldn't move my legs or my body, but he fed me and got me back onmy feet."
Habibullah's fate now hangs on the UN refugee council, whichhas the power to grant him asylum in a third country, a process that could takeyears.
Australia is struggling with a record influx ofasylum-seekers, who usually face mandatory detention once they arrive or aretransferred to offshore processing centres in Papua New Guinea or Nauru. Withnumbers growing, it has since allowed some to be released into the community onseverely restricted visas which ban them from working while offering scantfinancial support or rights to family reunion.
The United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR in Jakarta said thatas of end of July 2012, there were 1,225 refugees and 5,429 asylum seekerscumulatively registered, with nearly 60 percent coming from Afghanistan,followed by Iran and Pakistan. Growth rates have leapt in recent years.
