While little detail has been released about the estimated 460 refugees on board the MV Tampa most are reportedly from Afghanistan. As such they are fleeing the ruling Pakistan-backed Taliban faction in their native land, probably the most repressive regime in the world.

Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 more than six million have tried to escape the conflicts that have torn the country apart.

In the last 12 months alone the Taliban regime has displaced an estimated 900,000 people using scorched-earth ethnic cleansing policies. Life expectancy in the country is just 45. Women are not allowed to work, adult literacy is just 30 per cent and droughts have hit the country.

Where they are fleeing to?

If the refugees had made it to Christmas Island they would have had an excellent chance of staying in Australia. They would have been airlifted to the mainland and from there would have begun the process of claiming political asylum.

That application process takes years in some cases, and while an applicant is being considered he or she is held in one of Australia's six detention centres. Three more centres have been earmarked for development in the last fortnight to deal with the steady stream of illegal immigrants.

But while conditions are unpleasant in the camps, around 85 per cent of detainees are granted permission to stay in Australia.