Some 50 Sri Lankan Tamils seeking asylum in a third country have abandoned their quest and returned to Sri Lanka over the last two weeks.
They are among nearly 200 Sri Lankan Tamils arrested by Thai police in two raids for violation of Thailand's immigration laws. Most of them had overstayed the tourist visas they travelled on or had illegally entered Thailand on false passports or doctored documents.
Still others now in the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in Bangkok are awaiting emergency passports or air tickets to return to Sri Lanka.
Several of them have no passports as they had been handed over to agents who had promised to provide them with new documents to travel to the west, had destroyed or abandoned their passports before applying for asylum or had genuinely lost them.
Those without passports who are hoping to return to Sri Lanka have asked the Sri Lanka Embassy in Bangkok for temporary travel documents. Among those who have already returned to Sri Lanka are families and individuals who had been issued with emergency certificates by the Embassy after receiving approval from the Immigration Department in Colombo.
Asked why they wished to return home after having sought to travel to a third country, several of them told embassy officials that as the war was over and peace had returned they wanted to resume their lives in the country of their birth.
Some of them had been in Thailand for well over a year and some even two to three years awaiting acceptance by the UNHCR as refugees. But several returnees, particularly those with families, felt they should return and bring up their children in a Sri Lankan environment.
The Sri Lankans were arrested in two separate police sweeps conducted in Bangkok in October and in a seaside rural area called Songkhla in the Gulf of Thailand last month. The Thai police started cracking down after the wide publicity given in the foreign media about human smuggling ships operating from Thai waters.
Those arrested in Bangkok were mainly Tamils who had registered with the UNHCR and were waiting acceptance while those detained in Songkhla appeared to be those who had gathered in the hope of joining a human smuggling ship to get to Canada which appeared to be the most favoured destination.
One of the problems holding back some who want to return is the lack of funds to buy their air tickets though they have their passports. Some have had relatives or friends from abroad or in Sri Lanka sending them money to buy the tickets or arranging to have air tickets delivered to them.
Besides the lack of an air ticket some have still to receive approval from Colombo for the issue of an emergency certificate which they have applied for. |
E-mail
