Refugees begin transfer to Nauru

By Grant Holloway and wires

BOE, Nauru -- After three weeks at sea, about 100 asylum seekers have left an Australian navy ship and been taken to a camp on the tiny Pacific island state of Nauru.

The asylum seekers were among those saved from a sinking Indonesian ferry by a Norwegian freighter in late August.

Hundreds of locals turned up at Nauru's main port to watch the asylum seekers be ferried to the shore by an Australian landing craft.

Women performed traditional dances and each asylum seeker was handed a small bunch of flowers.

As they approached the dock, some of the refugees held up a banner thanking Nauru "for giving protection and shelters for Afghan refugees."

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The asylum seekers became the focus of an international dispute when Australia's Government refused to allow them to leave the Norwegian freighter Tampa and barred them from setting foot on the remote Australian territory of Christmas Island.

A deal was struck whereby the more than 600 asylum seekers would have their refugee status assessed on Nauru and in New Zealand.

Patrols stepped up

In a bid to deter an expected flood of asylum seekers arriving at Australia's remote ocean outposts, the Australian Government this week passed legislation excluding those territories from its Migration Zone.

That move effectively removes the right of any asylum seekers arriving at places such as Christmas Island from being able to make claims for refugee status.

Australia has also stepped up its naval patrols of the international waters between Australia and Indonesia and is turning back boatloads of asylum seekers, many of whom have paid people smugglers to take them to Australia from Afghanistan and the Middle East.

More than 4000 asylum seekers arrived by boat on Australian shores last financial year, and a further 1212 have arrived since June -- numbers which are not huge compared with many other countries.

However, with conditions deteriorating in Afghanistan, the Australian Government is moving now in a bid to head off what it believes could be a much greater flood of asylum seekers in coming months.

Speaking on Australian radio Wednesday, Prime Minister John Howard said the legal moves and Nauru agreement sent "an even stronger signal that we will do everything we can to resist people smuggling".

However, he said Australia was not walking away from its responsibilities to take refugees.

"We won't in any way walk away from our responsibility to take refugees.

"I want to emphasize again this country takes more refugees on a per capita basis than any country except Canada, and there are only eight or nine countries in the world that regularly take refugees and Australia is one of them," he said.

Popular political move

"Those people who attack Australia and this government for being unfair and unreasonably insensitive seem to ignore the fact that our record on refugees is better than most."

The move to crack down on illegal immigration has also proved a popular one within Australia, with a new opinion poll released Wednesday showing support for Howard's conservative coalition government soaring.

The decision to refuse the asylum seekers the right to land in Australia could have backfired had the government not been able to strike a deal with Nauru to act as a staging post.

Nauru -- a tiny Pacific Ocean republic midway between Australia and Hawaii -- agreed to take the bulk of the asylum seekers in exchange for $10.4 million in aid from Australia.

Staff of the United Nations' refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Wednesday they would begin reviewing refugee applications early next week.

UNHCR spokeswoman Marissa Bandharangshi said it would most likely take the 10-member team several weeks to review all of the applications.

Asylum seekers who have their applications rejected will likely be deported by Nauru.

While their cases are being heard, the asylum seekers will stay at a makeshift camp built by Australian soldiers on a sports ground in the deserted center of Nauru, which has been stripped bare by decades of mining for phosphate, Nauru's only export.

The International Organisation for Migration earlier made a final inspection of the camp site and given the go ahead for the first batch of asylum seekers to be moved there.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.