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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Daniel Hurst Foreign affairs and defence correspondent

Australia funds GPS trackers on Sri Lankan fishing boats, partially to deter people smugglers

Sri Lankan fishing boats
Clare O’Neil, the new home affairs minister, says Australia and Sri Lanka have ‘detected and stopped every boat that has tried to sailed to another country, saving many lives at sea’. Photograph: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images

Australia has provided funding to install tracking devices on more than 4,000 Sri Lankan fishing vessels, a move partly aimed at detecting asylum seekers journeying to Australia.

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, has repeatedly emphasised during her visit to Sri Lanka this week that Australia maintains its hardline Operation Sovereign Borders policy, despite the change of government last month.

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