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wenty-two allegedly illegal Afghan immigrants were arrested on a bus heading to Jakarta, in Asahan regency, North Sumatra, on Thursday afternoon.

Separately, 15 illegal Afghan immigrants were found dead in waters near Halang Island, Riau, on Friday afternoon after their boat capsized.

Asahan military district commander Lt. Col. Roosdi Soelihartojo said Friday the 22 arrested immigrants would be immediately transferred to the Belawan Immigration Office in Medan, North Sumatra.

The Afghans, he said, had entered Indonesia at 4 a.m. through Tanjung Balai Port in Asahan, allegedly from Malaysia, using a motorboat.

He said the 22 male immigrants had stayed in Malaysia for several days before leaving for Asahan.

He alleged that Malaysian government officers took the Afghan men out to the open sea and transferred them to an Indonesian fishing boat that had been organized by an Indonesian identified as "M". This Indonesian took them to Tanjung Balai Port, he said.

"According to our investigation, there is a person with the initial *M' who organized the transfer of the 22 men from Malaysia to Indonesia through the Tanjung Balai Port. We are still hunting down that person," Roosdi said, refusing to disclose any further details of that person.

One of the 22 immigrants, Jawat, 18, said he and his friends did not know who had sent them to Indonesia.

"We, including me, were all blindfolded while on board. We had our blindfolds taken off when we moved to another boat out at sea," he said, adding they were heading to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Jakarta.

He said they had run away from their country because of warfare between the Taliban and the US.

"All of my family has died because of the protracted war between the Taliban and the States. I'm going to *Indonesia* to save myself," said Jawat.

Over the past five months, at least 150 illegal immigrants from Afghanistan have entered the country from Malaysia through Tanjung Balai Port. All have been deported.

Another 10 unidentified Afghans who went missing after a boat accident on Thursday were found dead on Friday, making the tally of the dead victims 15, leaving five other Afghans and an estimated two to three members of the boat crew still missing, while 16 survived.

The citizenship of the missing members is unknown.

"Yesterday, a number of fishermen who happened to be around the location where the boat capsized, evacuated five dead victims and saved 16 other boat passengers who had been tossed about for almost three hours," Rokan Hilir Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Rohmat Nur Said told The Jakarta Post on Friday.