Asylum seekers turned back from Christmas Island found off West Timor

Sixteen asylum seekers whose boat was intercepted by Australian authorities 200 metres from Christmas Island have reappeared in the Indonesian island region of West Timor after a week being held incommunicado.

The 16 people from India, Nepal and Bangladesh were put on to a boat built at Australian expense – the Farah – with one crew member, and forced to return to Indonesia.

The asylum seekers were found stranded at sea near the town of Tablolong, on the western tip of West Timor, by local man Daniel Lani, according to a report by Antara news agency.

Lani told Antara the ship had run out of fuel and was stricken.

“They were yelling for help ... we led them to land, then we contacted the local police,” he said.

Bangladeshi asylum seeker Muhammad Anwar, 22, told Antara he, 15 other passengers, and one crewman, had been at sea for 10 days.

“We were heading to Christmas Island in Australia. When we arrived, we were detained for four days, the boat we used from Jakarta was destroyed by Australian security,” he told Antara.

Anwar told reporters navy officers told him Australia did not accept “illegal immigrants” from any countries. It is legal under international law to enter Australia without a visa to seek asylum.

It is not clear whether the passengers onboard the boat made asylum claims, or whether any such claims were assessed.

The navy towed the asylum seeker boat away from Christmas Island before transferring its passengers to a naval vessel and sailing them east to meet the Farah.

The Farah had been brought out of dock in Darwin for its single voyage. Australia does not expect to retrieve the boats built for returning asylum seekers.

The transfer to the Farah – provisioned with fuel, maps, life-jackets and supplies – took place at sea, with the navy ordering the asylum seekers to sail north, back to Indonesia.

In March, Guardian Australia revealed the Australian government had signed a “multi-million dollar deal” with a Vietnamese ship-builder to build 10 custom-made “alternative transportation vessels”, resembling Asian fishing boats, to be used to forcibly return asylum seekers to other countries.

The whereabouts of the Christmas Island boat – and the welfare of its passengers – has been the subject of intense scrutiny in parliamentary and public debate.

“The Australian people know that as a result of our successful policies, the people-smuggling trade has been broken,” attorney general George Brandis told parliament.

But Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the government’s “obsession with secrecy should be brought to an end”, while Labor’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, said the government rebuff was “nothing more than a tired, lazy slogan for suppressing facts from the Australian community”.

Lawyer George Newhouse, who represented a number of Sri Lankans held at sea for a month last year, said there was “no transparency” and no avenue for legal action “because we have no idea who is on the boat and where they came from”.

On Friday, representatives from 14 countries across south-east Asia, the UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration were due to meet in Jakarta to discuss irregular migration across the region.

The number of people travelling irregularly by boat through the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea has more than tripled over the past three years to reach 63,000.

In the first half of 2015, 31,000 people boarded boats in the region, a 34% increase on 2014’s record figure.