DHAKA: Australia said on Wednesday that no asylum-seekers’ boats have arrived for nearly a month, but the military leader leading border control said he was not yet ready to declare operations a success.

The number of people brought to Australia on people-smuggling boats to seek asylum has declined by more than 80 per cent since the conservative government of prime minister Tony Abbott won power in September.

Under the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders, asylum-seekers are sent to Pacific Island camps for processing with no chance of settlement in Australia, while boats intercepted at sea can be turned back to Indonesia.

‘We’ve had no arrivals now for coming on to four weeks. In that same period last year there were over 450 arrivals and in the two previous years the arrivals were also in the hundreds,’ immigration minister Scott Morrison said, reports gulfnews.com.

BDST: 1728 HRS, JAN 15, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor