Bodies from sunken vessel found off Bali

JAKARTA. December 23. KAZINFORM Search teams say bodies from an overcrowded ship that sank off Indonesia over the weekend have started to show up in waters off the popular resort island of Bali; Kazinform refers to Arab News.

The vessel - carrying 250 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Iran - capsized after being slammed by a huge wave in stormy weather. Only 49 people are known to have survived.

Sutrisno, a rescue official, says that 86 bloated corpses have been plucked from the sea so far, many of them carried as many as 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the capsize site by swift currents, including 13 found Thursday off Bali.

A 7-year-old boy was among them.

The Indonesian archipelago's thousands of miles of unpatrolled coastline make it a key transit point for smuggling migrants; Kazinform cites Arab News.

To learn more go to www.arabnews.com