A BABY and a 10-year-old girl are among at least six people dead...

A BABY and a 10-year-old girl are among at least six people dead after an asylum-seeker boat carrying 175 people sank off southern Java. At least 18 are still missing, feared dead.
Local police say the death toll from this latest asylum—seeker calamity, which occurred when their boat failed and broke apart only five kilometres from shore on Tuesday afternoon, may not be as great as first believed.
They say there were 175 people on the boat, all of them Iranians and Sri Lankans.
Six people are confirmed dead but many more are missing. Sri Lankans said at least 40 of their own Tamil kids were on the boat but it appears only eight to 10 children made it back to sure.
However, police who descended on the area say they have accounted for 154 survivors, along with the two deceased and a baby, aged one, who has been taken to a hospital morgue.
But a Sri Lankan man Kujan, said he said he knew for certain there were 175 Sri Lankans on the boat and 65 Iranians.
The asylum--seekers spent six hours in rough seas until a local fishermen found them in the darkness, raising the alarm at 8pm. By then, according to one of the survivors, seven children had drowned.


Read more: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/breaking-news/asylum-seeker-boat-bound-for-christmas-island-sinks-after-leaving-java-one-dead/story-e6frfkp9-1226684064434#ixzz2ZvYRWDoe