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Australian Troops Halt Refugee Ship, Norway Takes Case to World
CANBERRA, Aug 29 (News Agencies) - Australian troops halted a Norwegian freighter packed with hundreds of mainly Afghan refugees Wednesday after it entered Australian waters, drawing a furious response from Norway and compounding an international dispute over the fate of the rescued human cargo.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced he had ordered elite special forces to board and halt the ship after the captain defied an order from Canberra and entered Australian waters around Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
Norway blasted the Australian move, saying the actions by the captain who rescued the refugees were necessary to protect the lives of all aboard the ship and were justified on moral, legal and safety grounds.
The captain has warned that the physical condition of the refugees was worsening, a number of them were sick and several of the women aboard were pregnant.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland insisted that Australia must assume responsibility for the refugees and announced that Oslo had taken the case to the United Nations, the Red Cross and other international organizations.
A spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the refugees on the ship had the right to an asylum hearing and offered the organization's assistance to help Australia, Norway and Indonesia find a solution to the crisis.
"We are concerned that among the group of people who were rescued by the Norwegian ship there may indeed be refugees and asylum seekers," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva.
"Those who are found in need of protection should not be returned to their country of origin."
The UNHCR praised the Norwegian captain of the ship, Arne Rinnan, for rescuing the refugees and said it hoped the refusal by several countries to let the vessel put into port and unload its human cargo would not deter commercial shippers from future rescues on the high seas.
Redmond declined however to take a position in the dispute.
The crisis began last weekend when the Norwegian ship Tampa was asked by Australian authorities to respond to a distress call from a wooden boat transporting the refugees that was sinking off Indonesia.
Once aboard the Tampa, the refugees demanded to be taken to Christmas Island, an Australian territory located about 1,500 kilometers (940 miles) off the northwest coast of Australia, and threatened to jump overboard if they were not.
The vessel remained stationary Wednesday inside Australian territorial waters and Norway warned Australia that it would create a "very serious situation" if the troops tried to take over the controls of the ship and move it from its present location against the captain's will.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies meanwhile stated that states had an obligation to protect refugees and said it was imperative that a resolution of the standoff be found quickly.
"States have a duty to protect these people and it is imperative that a solution be found that will bring their suffering to an end and will allow them to begin the process of seeking asylum," the president of the federation, Astrid Heiberg, said in a statement from Geneva.
Both Australia and Norway argued that their positions were justified under international law and the International Maritime Organization said that while the captain of the Tampa had performed his duty in rescuing the refugees their fate afterwards was up to the UNHCR and the states involved.
Norway separately warned Australia however that it would breach international maritime law if it succeeded in efforts to push through a new law that would legalize its attempts to remove the Norwegian ship from its territorial waters.
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