A spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison would not comment on operations. However, responding to early speculation that two men loaded onto the boat may have been those who were treated medically on Christmas Island in February, the spokesman quoted earlier information that those two men had already been transferred to Nauru.

An asylum seeker boat carrying refugees arrives on Christmas Island on November 20, 2012. The Australian navy has escorted eight boats back to Indonesian waters since December 19, 2013.

A statement released by the Indonesian navy late on Monday night said 18 asylum seekers — 16 Indians and two Nepalese — had set out on April 26 from South Sulawesi. They were intercepted by Operation Sovereign Borders vessels on May 1 near Ashmore Reef, an Australian territory in the ocean west of Darwin.

The asylum seekers told the Indonesian naval officers the Australian vessels then escorted their wooden boat closer to Indonesia where, on Sunday, the three extra men — two Albanians and an Indonesian — were put on board.

The wooden boat was then left on the ocean and directed towards Indonesian territory. It ran out of fuel at an island in Indonesia’s remote eastern province, where the men were stranded, then found by Indonesian navy personnel.