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Indonesia announces it will send illegal immigrants back home

Indonesia says it's ready to start sending illegal migrants back to their home countries - including people from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The statement's been made on the eve of a regional conference on people-smuggling.

Graeme Dobell reports from the Indonesian island of Bali:

"Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirayuda says the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees is ready to repatriate about 400 people from Indonesia. Australia as co-chairman of the conference says the crackdown across the region is making it harder for people smugglers to operate. But the foreign minister, Alexander Downer says intelligence suggests that smugglers could use a cargo ship to try to get hundreds of asylum seekers to New Zealand: "If they could go ahead with some sort of you know, getting a steel hull boat and taking hundreds, I've seen bigger figures than 300, and that hundreds of people to New Zealand, look it's conceivable but it wouldn't be logistically very easy for them to do."

27/02/2002 09:35:10 | ABC Radio Australia News

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