Hazara Nation

TheAge EIGHT Afghan asylum seekers rescued by the navy from a sinking boat off Western Australia last year will be flown to the mainland after the Immigration Department found they would face persecution or death if returned to their homeland.

The decision to grant the permanent protection visas comes less than a week after 28 Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers — the first group to be processed on Christmas Island under the Rudd Government — were also found to be refugees.

One of the eight Afghans, a medical doctor and human rights activist, told The Age from Christmas Island he was forced to flee his homeland after being shot twice.

"I have the scars of these bullets on my body," he said through a Dari interpreter.

The man, who asked that his name not be used until he reached the mainland, said he was from the Hazara ethnic minority group, which was targeted by the Taliban.

"Eighty-five per cent of Afghanistan is now covered by people of al-Qaeda and the Taliban," he said.

The man, who practised as a GP in Afghanistan, said one of his "deepest desires" was to become a cardiologist to "pay back the good deeds of the Australian people".

"I want to convey my deepest appreciation to the Government of Australia and the people of Australia," he said.

The eight Afghan adults and two children, who are already in Adelaide, were rescued by HMAS Ararat on November 19, after Coastwatch spotted their sinking ship — which had a broken engine and hole in the hull — about 150 kilometres from Ashmore Island.

Their lawyer David Manne, from the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, welcomed the Government's "prompt and efficient processing of the claims".

"This represents a vast improvement on past practice of prolonged processing, which caused such unnecessary and huge human and financial cost," he said.

Mr Manne said the Afghans were the direct victims of a vicious and unrelenting pattern of human rights abuse targeting minorities.

"They fled from brutality and terror inflicted by the Taliban and other extremists — exactly the same elements which Australia and other Western countries have been battling against," he said.

The decision to grant the men visas comes as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, this week told the Security Council the number of refugees world-wide had increased to more than 11 million over the past two years.

Mr Guterres said 3 million Afghans remained in exile in Pakistan and Iran.

Eight boats of mostly Afghan, Iranian and Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been intercepted in Australian waters in the past four months, with the most recent arriving off the coast of Western Australia last Sunday.

Although the number of unauthorised arrivals rose only slightly in 2008 to 164, compared with 148 the previous year, the Government's border protection scheme has come under intense scrutiny.

While human rights activists and immigration lawyers have applauded the scrapping of temporary protection visas and faster processing times, the Opposition has claimed this has made Australia a "soft target" for people smugglers.