A foiled illegal immigration bid has highlighted how Sri Lankan Tamil refugees languishing in Tamil Nadu’s government camps continue to be duped by racketeers with promises of a better life in Australia.
The 28 refugees intercepted by state coastal police on June 2 while being driven to their waiting boat were the lucky ones. Had they been able to sail, past experience suggests they could well have perished in the high seas in their crummy boats or been locked up in refugee detention centres on islands off the Australian coast.
A senior Indian police officer said the local and Lankan agents of a human trafficking ring exploit the refugees’ reluctance to return to Sri Lanka and their desire to escape the poor living conditions in their Tamil Nadu camps.
Activists working with refugees said the agents lure the refugees with offers of a sea trip to Australia at Rs 1 lakh per head. They are told that asylum is a certainty once they reach the transit camps on Australia’s Christmas Island.
On June 2, the group of 28 from four refugee camps were caught while on their way to the Pulicat Lake, a lagoon between Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, in two vans with a bike-borne escort.
They had been told they would be posing as tourists taking a boat ride on the lake before being shifted to a vessel on the coast, which would eventually drop them at Christmas Island.
The coastal police arrested the van drivers and the escort - allegedly an agent - along with the 13 male refugees. The women and children were sent back to their camps.
“We suspect some agents collect the money and tip the police off while transporting them to the pick-up point,” said S.C. Chandrahasan of OfERR, an organisation that works for the rehabilitation of the Lankan Tamil refugees living in government camps in the state.
The racket began in 2002 with most of the Australia trips by Tamil refugees happening from Sri Lanka itself. Some 200 of them died when their boats capsized.
Another 1,600 reached Christmas Island only to be sent to detention centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea under an arrangement these countries have with Canberra. The Australian government claims it has sent back some people.
-The Telegraph India
-Agencies
