FED: Aust can expect more boats carrying Sri Lankans: Smith
22 Apr 2009 9:50 PM
Subject: FED: Aust can expect more boats carrying Sri Lankans: Smith FED: Aust can expect more boats carrying Sri Lankans: Smith
Foreign Minister STEPHEN SMITH says there's a significant risk that more boatloads of displaced Sri Lankans will arrive on Australia's shores in the coming months.
Another boatload of asylum seekers was intercepted off the West Australian coast this morning carrying 32 Sri Lankan men.
Sri Lanka's government's claimed the Tamils are close to complete defeat .. with a defence spokesman saying more than 80 thousand people have fled the shrinking patch of territory still controlled by the separatist guerrillas.
Mr SMITH says the Australian government's very concerned about people fleeing the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and Sri Lanka.
AAP RTV jcd/af=0A
FED: Aust can expect more boats carrying Sri Lankans: Smith