I think they kept staying on the boat untill KRudd gave them a deal to get off and come to Aus if they were genuine refugees. Some came to melbourne and some went to Canada and some scandavian country i think. They seemed pretty resilient, i would have let them in after a week if they were that adamant.
Anyway i just saw some of the foreign corrospondant doco, and it seemed like they were being heavily oppressed. There was this tamil guy who spoke some english who attempted to come here on a boat and got caught by the SL navy. And in jail the Sinhalese police officers refered to him as 'Australians' and stated that 'you Australians can eat last' how slack is that. Cunning, but slack.