No maps, no GPS, no training: How 44 people survived being turned back in the Timor Sea

Singapore/Kupang: A boatload of migrants allegedly turned back by the Australian Border Force without maps, navigational equipment or reasonable training ran aground on rocks on Rote Island, Indonesia. Another group beached a few kilometres away and had to be rescued by locals responding to pleas for help.

One man said they were so scared after being cut loose in the vast Timor Sea with only a 15-minute Border Force course in handling the boat, that they didn’t dare touch anything but the steering wheel.

Mithu, 27, from Bangladesh, hoped to reach Australia for work. His full image or identity cannot be revealed.Credit: Amilia Rosa

“They said, ‘You see that land, that mountain? Go there.’ No GPS or maps,” Sanour, 38, said.

“We were afraid … something could go wrong and we could be lost at sea. What would happen to us then? We were relieved when we reached land and the locals helped us. The Indonesian authorities have helped us since.”

In interviews in an Indonesian detention centre in Kupang, Sanour and another migrant, Mithu, reveal previously unknown details about the danger they were placed in, they say, by Australian officers. Their claims contradict previous Border Force statements that officers had “safely” turned the people back to Indonesia.

The group of migrants, mostly from Bangladesh with several from Myanmar, were intercepted in June in an unknown location as a boatload of 74 people, including two crew. They were held and questioned for 18 days on a large Border Force vessel without contact with lawyers or their embassies, the men say.

For reasons that remain unclear, the Australians first sent the boat’s two smuggling crew members back to Indonesia, along with 28 of their passengers. This left 44 people on the Australian vessel who didn’t know the way or the waters. Border Force’s response to the potentially deadly conundrum was to put them on two boats and show four of those people how to steer them.

“They asked who can speak English and I raised my hand,” Mithu, 27, said.

“They said, ‘Watch me, I will teach you how to drive the boat.’ It was 15 minutes, no more. They taught me and another three: ‘If you want to go left, you steer the wheel to the left … then there is this stick-like gear. If you want to go faster, you push it up. If you want to go slower, you pull it down’.

“None of us knew how to get to land. When we saw the beach, we just drove it there. Our boat hit sand and stopped.”

They say the other boat hit rocks several kilometres away, a claim corroborated by photographs from police on Rote Island. No one was believed to have been injured.

Border Force put the men on two boats and turned them back to Indonesia without maps or GPS. This one ran aground on rocks on Rote Island.Credit: Rote Island police

Hamzah Hamitu, a fisherman from Kupang and veteran of these waters, was incredulous when he heard there was no crew on the boats to guide the migrants to Rote Island safely.

“They [the Australians] shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “The Timor Sea is a dangerous place. We have strong currents – they could have easily died.”

The men say they were given bottled water, one meal of rice and energy bars.

“After we hit the beach, we saw a local man collecting wood nearby. We approached him, and we said we needed help, to please help,” Sanour said. “The Indonesians are very good people, very kind people. They helped us.”

It was unclear if the Australians informed their counterparts in Indonesia of an imminent arrival. Border Force did not respond to questions.

Mithu and Sanour are emotional recalling their hours-long journey back to Indonesia but do not want to speak ill of the Australians. Mithu said the boats provided by Border Force seemed “strong”. Sanour, a father of three, said everyone was treated well while on the Australian ship.

“Can you ask the Australian government how we can go there and work legally?” he asked. “Can they help us?”

Sanour’s misadventure began with a post on TikTok from a fellow Bangladeshi promising passage to Australia. In a later meeting, he was told that for 50,000 Malaysian ringgit ($17,650) he could get to Australia and have a legal job that paid three or four times what he was earning in Malaysia.

Sanour, a 38-year-old father of three, lost his life savings to the people smugglers, who threatened to kill him. His full image or identity cannot be revealed.Credit: Amilia Rosa

“Within a week of that meeting, I was on our journey to Australia via Indonesia,” he said. “The first payment was RM15,000, then another RM5000 when we started the journey. We were only supposed to pay the balance after we arrived in Australia – after we got our job.

“But in Jakarta, they took our passports, our phones, and told us to pay the balance or they would kill us … We were powerless and scared, so we paid the balance. We knew then we were being taken to Australia illegally.

“It cost me all my savings, some gold jewellery, and a bank loan. I will go home to a massive debt. I’ve been working in Malaysia for the last 10 years, and my wife and three kids are back home in Bangladesh.

“When I called my wife [after being rescued], I told her everything. She said the most important thing was that I am alive. But I lost everything and more.”

As per Indonesian immigration detention centre rules, neither man can be identified by their photograph or full name.

Head of Kupang’s immigration centre, Ma’mum (who goes by one name), said the passengers were all in the process of being deported to their home countries.

“They have been determined as victims of people smuggling, and they are not being charged with committing any crime in Indonesia,” he said.

It was understood the smuggler crew duo was captured on the island of Java.

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