Melbourne , Feb 28 (NNN-BERNAMA) Sri Lankan Health Minister Siripala de Silva says a group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers detained by the Australian authorities on Christmas Island should be returned to their homeland because they are not refugees.

De Silva said the 83 men, all Tamils, who were intercepted by the Australian Navy in international waters last week, were not genuine refugees but had fled their country for economic reasons.

Christmas Island is an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean located about 500 km south of Jakarta, Indonesia.

"These are immigrants of economic nature, they are not genuine asylum seekers," he told ABC Radio. "Our request is they must be deported back to Sri Lanka ."

Australia is considering sending the Sri Lankans to Indonesia if it can secure a guarantee from Jakarta that their asylum claims will be processed in Indonesia by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

But the Australian government says it will not send the men to Indonesia if they would then be returned to Sri Lanka , and may instead process them on Christmas Island or Nauru .

De Silva admitted he knew little about the men, but believed they would have fled to India if they had been in fear of their lives in Sri Lanka .

"Why should they come to Australia ? If they were in fear of their lives they should have run to India , which is 15 or 20km from Sri Lanka ," he said.

"How could they finance such a large venture? They have taken a short cut by trying to cheat Australian authorities."

De Silva said the Sri Lankan Government had "never persecuted anybody" and he could guarantee the men's safety if they were returned to Sri Lanka , where government forces are locked in a civil war with secessionist Tamil Tiger rebels.

Meanwhile, a group of 150 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers is awaiting a boat in Indonesia to smuggle them to Australia , according to sources quoted by an Australian media group.

Fairfax newspapers quoted sources in Melbourne's and Sydney's Sri Lankan communities as saying the Sri Lankans are all men under 25, mostly of Tamil descent, and who are claiming they are escaping persecution at home.

Some of the asylum-seekers were under 16 and have been waiting for five months to be taken by smugglers to a third country like Australia , the report said.

The Sri Lankan community figures said the parents of the young men had mortgaged their houses and possessions to send their sons away from their homes in the nation's troubled northern and eastern provinces, fearing they would be killed if they stayed.

They were targeted by security forces "because of their age and ethnicity" because of reports Tamil rebel forces forcibly recruit young men to their ranks.

The exodus of young Tamils followed the resumption of hostilities last year between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) separatist group and government forces.