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Sri Lankan fatally burned in Hong Kong refugee slum
A young Sri Lankan man was fatally burned on Thursday morning in a blaze that destroyed the small corrugated iron shack in which he lived alone in a remote Hong Kong village.
The unfortunate victim, a Tamil man believed to be in his mid-30s, had sought asylum in Hong Kong. His parents are in Jaffna, a friend, who is also a Sri Lankan, told the Sunday Times on Friday. The parents have been informed of his death and his brother was due in Hong Kong, the friend said.
Vision First, an NGO which advocates improved living conditions for refugees in Hong Kong, had earlier warned that a tragedy could occur at the village site where foreigners seeking asylum are housed in corrugated tin shacks in the district of Yuen Long. The warning went unheeded.
The corrugated iron shack the man had rented had been arranged through International Social Service Hong Kong Branch, the Sri Lankan man’s friend told the Sunday Times. ISS Hong Kong has been providing humanitarian assistance including housing and food to refugees and torture claimants as a partner of the Social Welfare Department since 2006.Legislative Council records show that in 2013-14, the Social Welfare Department committed HK$203 million (about Rs. 3.4 billion) for assistance to refugees.
ISS Hong Kong acknowledged on Friday that “the living conditions were not up to standard,’’ when asked about the site at which the Sri Lankan died. The manager responsible for the area at ISS HK said the accommodation had been a “concern for a long time’’. She said a case worker had visited the Sri Lankan on January 26 but that the refugee had not mentioned a problem with regard to his accommodation. The claim cannot be verified.
With reference to refugee accommodation ISS Hong Kong notes on its website: “Rented flats are provided for asylum seekers and torture claimants with a capacity of 11 roommates for one flat.’’
To those who prefer to find their own places to live, ISS Hong Kong directly pays the rents to landlords. Many have selected corrugated iron shacks, suspected to have been introduced to them. These have caused alarm and stirred outrage. Some have squat toilets.
Vision First had raised the alarm in advance and continued to do so until recently. The NGO notes in a blog: “In a 28 January 2015 meeting, we brought to the attention of Lands Department officers that the slums generally constituted a fire hazard and it was only a matter of time before one would go up in flames, possibly with loss of human life.’’
Vision First founder Cosmo Beatson said the land on which the tin shacks stand, had been leased for pigsties and chicken sheds and that “any non-agricultural structures were unauthorized’’. The licence has been revoked.
Vision First describes the tin shacks built for refugees as “death traps’’ because of “overcrowding, substandard construction, illegal electrical wiring, gas cooking in confined spaces, and alarmingly, a lack of firefighting equipment’’.
The dead Sri Lankan’s friend has given a statement to the police and has helped to identify the severely burnt corpse.
The Yuen Long district, where the refugee ghettos are located, is home to more than 130,000 living in poverty according a Hong Kong Government study a couple of years ago. It has a population of 560,000. A tourist to Hong Kong rarely sees the crowded district. It is a satellite town developed in 1972.