Indonesian police are holding 50 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers in custody two days after they were found stranded and starving in a faulty boat drifting off Sumatra, a rescue official said on Saturday. Fishermen found the asylum seekers, who were trying to reach Australia, on Thursday on a boat with a broken engine and brought them ashore, National Search and Rescue Agency spokesman Gagah Prakoso told AFP. “They were starving and dehydrated, but have since been given food, water and medical attention. They are now in the custody of police in the town of Sikakap,” he said, adding that the asylum-seekers were mostly men. The boat was found drifting near the Mentawai islands, a popular surfing destination around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the western coast of Sumatra. It had left Sri Lanka more than two weeks earlier, local rescue official Josafath Roberth Duka told Kompas daily, and its engine had broken down nine days before being discovered by the fishermen. The discovery happened as Indonesian rescuers scrambled to find 150 asylum-seekers, all believed to be Afghans, whose boat was destroyed some 24 hours before.
