FEARS are mounting that 97 missing asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran may have died at sea, en route to Australia from Indonesia.
Relatives of 14 of the missing have told welfare workers they last had contact with them on November 13. They said their relatives had been in Jakarta and planned to leave the next day on a boat with about 97 people.
The journey from Indonesia by sea takes two to four days, but no further contact has been made by anyone believed to have left Jakarta in mid-November.
