Writer tells of ordeal on asylum seeker boat

TWO journalists who went undercover on an asylumseeker boat bound for Australia have published details of their harrowing voyage.

In an extensive report accompanied by images and footage, published by The New York Times Magazine yesterday, US writer Luke Mogelson recounted the three-day, 320km-plus September trip aboard a 9m‘‘sad’’ timber boat that was ‘‘clearly not designed for passengers’’.

Posing as Georgians who fled their home country with sensitive information about the government, Mogelson and Dutch photographer colleague Joel van Houdt paid $US4000 ($A4300) each to be taken from Indonesia to Christmas Island.

The Afghanistan-based reporters arranged the transfer before arriving in Jakarta.

‘‘It’s surprisingly simple, from Kabul, to enlist the services of the smugglers Austral- ian authorities are so keen to apprehend,’’ Mogelson wrote.

They shared the boat with two Indonesian crew, an Afghan man, plus 54 Iranians including nine children and more than a dozen women.

‘‘The Indonesians distributed life vests: ridiculous things, made from thin fabric and a bit of foam,’’ Mogelson wrote. Within hours of setting off, most were vomiting.

Would- be travellers had not been put off by Austra- lia’s deterrence measures, including billboard advertisements in their home countries that Australia was not settling asylum seekers.

Conditions on board were sickening.

‘‘There was no toilet and, absent any railing to hold on to, going over the side was too risky. The men urinated on the hull, the women in their pants,’’ Mogelson wrote.

Upon nearing Christmas Island, a crew member used a satellite phone to call Australian authorities for help.

When Australian sailors arrived, they distributed new life vests, fresh water, bags of frozen tortillas, jars of honey and a tub of strawberry jam.

They instructed the crew to restart the engines and continue their trek under escort.

The two men were taken to ‘‘a surprisingly luxurious hotel’’, their companions were interned and the boat towed out to sea to be destroyed.