Hundreds of refugees still refuse to land on Nauru

Officials are negotiating with hundreds of refugees who are refusing to leave an Australian navy ship anchored off the Pacific island of Nauru.

A group of about 230 Iraqi and Palestinian asylum seekers have told migration officials they will not leave the HMAS Manoora unless it took them to Australia.

Since then, just 13 of the group have left the ship.

The refugees, who were picked up in Australian waters on September 7, say they paid people smugglers thousands of dollars each to take them to Australia.

"We still have the feeling that there's lots of people in the group that want to get off (at Nauru), and we're working on ways to get to speak to them alone," International Office of Migration regional representative Mark Getchell said.

The Iraqis and Palestinians are one of two groups of asylum seekers on board the troop carrier HMAS Manoora, which arrived at Nauru on Tuesday after almost three weeks at sea.

The other group consisted of 433 mostly Afghan asylum seekers who were rescued from a sinking Indonesian ferry by the Norwegian cargo ship MV Tampa near the remote Australian territory of Christmas Island late last month.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard turned away the boat people as part of a hardline crackdown on people smuggling rings that transport thousands of asylum seekers to Australia each year.

The refugees from the Tampa started coming ashore Wednesday, and the last of the men traveling without families disembarked early on Friday.

As the 57 men clambered on to landing craft to take them ashore, the remaining Tampa group gathered on the Manoora's deck to wave farewell. Those left on the ship will be flown to New Zealand likely early next week.