A small vessel believed to be carrying asylum seekers was seen off Australia's remote west coast Monday, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) reported, the first sighting of a boat carrying would-be refugees close to shore in two years.

Australia has vowed to stop asylum seekers reaching its shores, turning boats back to Indonesia when it can and sending those it cannot to camps in impoverished Papua New Guinea and Nauru in the South Pacific for long-term detention.

Australia's Department of Immigration routinely does not comment on "on water" operations, so it was not immediately possibly to verify the ABC report.