News
35 foreign refugees relocated at rehabilitation centre in Vavuniya
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has temporarily relocated 35 foreign refugees at the Poonthottam Rehabilitation Centre in Vavuniya.
Earlier, discussions were held to relocate the refugees to Ridiyagama. Hambantota. This was abandoned due to protests by area residents. A decision was then taken to transfer 169 of the refugees to the Poonthottam Rehabilitation Centre in Vavuniya. However, only 35 refugees were transferred.
Last Sunday, a family of six out of the 35 who were relocated to Vavuniya were taken to Jaffna and accommodated in a private house in Nallur, Jaffna. This move too failed after area residents complained to Northern Governor Dr. Suren Raghavan.
The Governor had then explained to the people who volunteered to temporarily accommodate the refugees that the situation could lead to unrest in the area. Accordingly, steps had been taken to take the refugee family back to Vavuniya on the same day.
The UNHCR’s Colombo office stated that these individuals all belong to ethnic and religious minorities fleeing persecution in their own countries and have sought temporary refuge in Sri Lanka while their asylum claims are determined and while solutions are found for those among them who are recognised as refugees. “Many of them have already been submitted for third country resettlement and would leave Sri Lanka in the coming months while others will hopefully be able to return to their previous residences or residences elsewhere in Sri Lanka while they await the expedited processing of their asylum claims,” the UNHCR said.
UNHCR’s reply to last week’s news
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Colombo has sent a Right of Reply over our last week’s news item “Foreign refugees to be temporarily relocated in Vavuniya.”
“.. the number of refugees being voluntarily relocated to Vavuniya would be considerably less than the 1060 mentioned in the article as this is envisaged to be a temporary measure to relieve the Negombo police station that has been hosting over a hundred refugees for the past few weeks,” the UNHCR said item