GALLE, Sri Lanka/SYDNEY: Sri Lankan migrants aboard a boat that was controversially turned back mid-sea by Australia slammed Canberra on Tuesday, claiming they were abused, given little food and water and treated “worse than dogs.”

The group of 41 migrants, including four women and nine children, appeared in a court in the southern Sri Lankan city of Galle, where most were granted bail on charges of illegally leaving the country.

As anxious relatives waited outside the colonial-era building, magistrate Umesh Kalansuriya granted bail to 27 of the group, remanded five into custody and discharged the children.

Some of the women, one carrying a baby and clutching their children’s hands, wept as police told the magistrate that the group had broken immigration laws, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of two years.

Meanwhile, Australian government lawyers said Tuesday 153 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers were in custody on the high seas and agreed to give three days’ notice before handing any back to Colombo, as criticism mounted.

A late-night interim injunction Monday temporarily halted the transfer of the would-be refugees from the boat, whose very existence Canberra had previously refused to confirm.

Lawyers acting for about one-third of the mostly minority ethnic Tamils on board took their case to the High Court Tuesday, arguing that a transfer would be illegal and that they should not be returned to Sri Lanka against their will.

The court has yet to decide whether there is a case to answer. But in a submission government lawyers said the boat, which was believed to have set sail from India, was intercepted outside Australian territorial waters.

Australia has come under fire over the transfer, with experts warning that repelling migrants after screening them as potential asylum-seekers at sea appeared to be inadequate under international law.

Some of the migrants, most of whom were from Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community, told AFP they had been trying to get to New Zealand rather than Australia where they hoped they could find work.

L.A. Nilantha accused Australian customs officials of locking them up and giving them little food and water after they were picked up at sea by the Australian navy.

“They gave me a phone to speak with someone I did not know,” said Nilantha, a former shop owner. “I could not understand the language and the line was also very bad. I never had an opportunity to tell them what I wanted.”

Another migrant said they were racially abused and denied medication, while some attempted a hunger strike to protest their treatment.

Another unnamed passenger said they were given food past their expiry date adding “they treated us worse than dogs.”