PARIS, March 2 (AFP)  Less than half of the adult Kurdish immigrants beached on the
 French Riviera applied for asylum ahead of their deadline to do so and officials have loss
 contact with hundreds of them, the interior ministry said Friday.

 The rest were "in an illegal situation ... somewhere on French territory," an interior ministry
 official told AFP.

 Many of the Kurds have already attempted to cross illegally into Germany and Switzerland, but
 faced with the prospect of tracking down and prosecuting those still in France, the ministry has
 decided to give them a second chance.

 Interior ministry officials told AFP that a circular had been sent to France's regional governors
 authorising them to accept asylum demands from any Kurds who turn up even after their
 permission to be in France had expired.

 Those who were caught but refused to make an application would be "invited" to leave France,
 the circular said.

 Some 203 of the 430 adult Kurds made requests for asylum within the eight days permitted
 when they were released from a holding camp on February 28. Including children, some 910
 immigrants were on board the East Sea when it was beached, officials said.

 On Friday, 168 asylum seekers and 276 of their children were housed in official refugee
 accommodation but the rest were out of contact with authorities, an official said.

 The Kurds, who claim to have been persecuted in Iraq, were aboard a rusty freighter that was
 abandoned by human traffickers on rocks off France's Mediterranean coast on February 17.

 They were given eight days to apply for asylum, but many of them left the accommodation
 provided for them and some have since been caught and expelled from Germany or turned back
 at the Swiss border.

 Those that have applied for asylum will be allowed to stay for another month under a permit that
 is renewable until their applications are ruled upon.

 Those who failed to apply could in theory be prosecuted and expelled, but an interior ministry
 official told AFP this week that in the Kurds' case this would be a "practical impossibility."

 The Kurds claim to have begun their journey in Iraq and to have passed through Turkey before
 boarding the freighter, but Ankara has denied that the ship left its territory and has signed no
 agreement with France to accept expelled immigrants.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com