SYDNEY—Australia’s military intercepted a Sri Lankan boat carrying 13 migrants last month, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said on Sept. 2, as Canberra sought to defend the relocation of a Tamil family to a remote detention center.
Dutton said the vessel—intercepted off the Cocos Islands, a remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean—was the 13th boat from Sri Lanka attempting to travel to Australia to seek asylum in the past 18 months.
