JAKARTA, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Navy on Friday found the bodies of the Afghan refugees who were onboard a boat that had recently sunk in the Riau waters off the port city of Bagansiapiapi, in Riau province, a Navy commander said.

    "This afternoon (Friday) we found five more bodies. We have discovered another two in the morning," the Detik.com quoted Bagansiapiapi Navy post commander Lieutenant Al Muhfid as saying.

    Muhfid said the bodies of the refugees were onboard a fishing boat which sunk a day earlier.

    He said the Navy's Search and Rescue (SAR) team also had found five bodies of the Afghan refugees on Thursday. All of those bodies had been buried in the port city in the afternoon.

    Citing to the testimony of the saved Afghan refugees, Al Muhfid said the fishing boat was used to transport the refugees to Bagansiapiapi city from a large ship which carried them from Malaysia.

    According to Muhfid, the Navy's SAR team rescued 16 refugees from the sunken boat. The efforts to search for the other refugees who were possibly sunk along with the ill-fated boat are still going on.

    Indonesia has been a favorite stopover point for refugees from South Asian countries before they continue their dangerous sea trip to Australia, a country they believed to provide better living standards.

    Earlier this month, teamed up with United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), the Indonesian government repatriated more than 100 Rohingya refugees to their original countries after they were found stranded in Aceh waters.