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Asylum seekers left in lurch in Sri Lanka as UN abandons them
World Refugee Day fell on June 20, but this year celebrations were subdued as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has decided to phase down its operations in Sri Lanka, leaving the 500 or so refugees and asylum seekers in the lurch.
Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, meaning that refugees and asylum seekers who make it here cannot stay permanently. Ultimately, they will have to be resettled in a third country, a process that UNHCR undertakes. But now the UNHCR office in Sri Lanka is essentially closing shop on asylum applications for 176 registered asylum seekers. Even those granted refugee status have been waiting for years, and even decades, for resettlement. Most are from Pakistan’s minority Ahmaddiya sect and Myanmar’s stateless Rohingya communities.
UNHCR’s Asia spokesperson, Liana Bianchi, said they will maintain a “liaison presence” from 2025 and “continue to work with authorities, the local community, and partners to ensure that those in need of international protection who will reside in
Sri Lanka beyond 2024 are protected against refoulement and that they are able to regularise their stay and access to their rights, in line with international standards.”
However, it is difficult to cope with the uncertain future. “The life of a refugee is a life of struggle,” said a Rohingya refugee who requested anonymity. “Legally, I cannot work and make any money. Local people with kind hearts support me for my rent and utilities, but not always, and I don’t know for how much longer,” he said.
Refugees in Sri Lanka are unable to work legally. For a while, refugees received an allowance from UNHCR, and private donors supported asylum seekers who were still going through the refugee determination process. But now UNHCR has stopped allowances, and charitable money is not steady.
“Many families only eat one or two meals a day,” said Ransy Gunawardana, who has worked with refugees and asylum seekers for nearly five years through the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO), “and even then it is just atta flour rotis.”
Ms. Gunawardana says she has noticed that many have developed iron deficiencies and get sick regularly. Some refugees and asylum seekers have been in Sri Lanka for more than ten years, and Ms. Gunawardana says the children have sadly been suffering from malnutrition.
The lack of steady income has created an education and nutrition crisis among refugee children. According to Ms. Gunawardana, about 70 children do not attend school. Since the government does not accept them into public schools, private schools are the only option. But because they are unable to pay the fees, only a few students receiving charity have the option to attend.
NAFSO’s Quintus Colambage says the Ministry of Health has helped secure access to healthcare. “The refugees can get treated at the Negombo and Kalubowila hospitals. Midwives and public health inspectors run health programmes for them as well,” he said.
However, Mr. Colambage says he is concerned that the dubious legal standing of refugees, especially now that UNHCR is leaving, is rendering them vulnerable. “Because they have no option, some refugees take odd jobs, but the bosses really exploit them,” he says. Refugees who work illegally are subjected to depressed wages and have no protections.
Sri Lanka has had a long relationship with refugees. For the most part,
Sri Lanka has been a sending country, with hundreds of thousands fleeing the 30-year civil war to India, Europe, and North America. Even today, about 100,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees remain in India, many in refugee camps. But in 2006, Sri Lanka became a receiving country as well, signing an MOU with UNHCR. As per the MOU, Sri Lanka would not deport individuals who were deemed by UNHCR to be “Persons of Concern” (POC) and would let them remain until they received resettlement or their refugee status was rejected.
The problem is that since last year, UNHCR has no longer been registering individuals as POCs, which means those arriving in Sri Lanka fleeing civil war and persecution share the same standing as any tourist overstaying their visa or running a business illegally. The Sunday Times learns of one instance where a mother without POC status recently gave birth in Sri Lanka and refused to take her child to be vaccinated at the hospital out of fear of being caught and deported.
The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) issued a statement for World Refugee Day this year, highlighting the plight of this community. It emphasised that the government of
Sri Lanka has an obligation to stand by the principle of “non-refoulement,” which demands that states not transfer or remove individuals when there are “substantial grounds for believing that the person would be at risk of irreparable harm upon return.”
HRCSL urged the government to consider accepting the 1951 refugee convention and “formulate a comprehensive policy to ensure the protection and promotion of the human rights of all refugees and asylum-seekers in Sri Lanka.
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