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Asylum seekers continue to make waves despite deportation
View(s):By Leon Berenger
Barely a day after the Australian authorities forcibly repatriated a group of 39 Sri Lankan boat-people, another group of 101 persons, including women and children, were apprehended by the navy and police on Friday this week, while attempting a similar crossing, officials said yesterday.
On Thursday, the Australian authorities defied human rights activists and refugee advocates and forcibly deported the 39 Sri Lankans who sailed earlier this month and sought refuge at Geraldton Port, after 44 days at sea. They were repatriated on a chartered flight.
The authorities were convinced that the group were not genuine refugees, and hence the decision to deport them.
In one detection, a group of 61, including women and children, was detected on a single trawler, several nautical miles off the Trincomalee coast, the officials added. Among those arrested were 60 Tamils and a Sinhalese that included 43 men, 8 women and 10 children.
The group was later handed over to the harbour police at Trincomalee. In a related development, another group of 44 suspect asylum seekers were apprehended at a location in Aluthgama during the early hours of Friday morning, police said. They said the group that included 5 women and 4 children, were arrested around 2 am on Friday inside a vehicle close to the Kaluwamodera Bridge.
Police suspect the group was being moved to a beach, before boarding a vessel, when they were apprehended.
With the end of the ‘Eelam War’ in 2009, some 3000-plus Sri Lankans, mainly from the north and east, have been apprehended by the navy alone, while attempting to reach the Australian coast by boat, Navy Spokesman Kosala Warnakulasooriya told the Sunday Times.
Similar detections have also been made by the police at various locations, mainly in the North-Western, Eastern and Southern coasts in the past several months.
153 Lankans land on Christmas Island
A group of 153 Sri Lankans landed on Christmas Island on the Australian Coast during the early hours of yesterday, reports said.
The group that included an undisclosed number of women and children, is the single largest Sri Lankans to land on Christmas Island this year.
The group had sailed in a large fishing vessel and was out at sea for 23 days before arriving on the island, reports added.
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