Their boat had attempted to reach Australia but was intercepted by an Australian "Operation Sovereign Borders" vessel.
But a month later, two Border Force vessels patrolling the waters between Turkey and Greek islands have stopped rescue work.
Malcolm Turnbull did a lot of posturing in front of, onboard, and in the vicinity of border force vessels at the Darwin port today – something of a campaign standard.
It follows the battle over 450 people rescued from a fishing ship and taken aboard two EU border agency vessels who were eventually allowed to disembark in Italy after five European countries agreed to take 50 each.
David Cameron, the British prime minister, offered the Royal Navy flagship, HMS Bulwark, three helicopters and two border patrol vessels to support EU operations as he arrived for the summit on Thursday, but did not say if the ships would be used for search and rescue operations or an expanded border patrol along the Greek and Italian coasts.
Doan said that if the group was returned to Vietnam they would face the same treatment as a group of 46 Vietnamese asylum seekers, who were handed over to Vietnamese authorities in April after being intercepted by Australian border patrol vessels.
In addition to coastguard and border police vessels, the Italian navy currently has three ships supported by four helicopters patrolling the area.
In the latest operations, Border Force vessels collected the groups - nine on one small boat and six, a few hours later, on another - and took them to Dover harbour.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said it would send a Royal Navy ship, the HMS Bulwark, along with three helicopters and two border patrol vessels, although the country would not be accepting more asylum seekers.
But this had serious ramifications for Operation Sovereign Borders; both vessels were inside Indonesian waters in one of a number of incursions into their territory that were described by Scott Morrison as inadvertent.
