Sent back by Australia to debt in Sri Lanka
Sri Lankans who made failed bids for asylum after the civil war return home, saddled with debt and facing criminal charges
Vaithilingam Lingarajan spent the war years plying the seas off the northern coast of Sri Lanka in his small fishing boat. It was only once the conflict ended that he decided to flee the country, making a failed bid for Australia that has left him destitute and facing possible criminal charges.
Lingarajan is one of more than 1,400 asylum seekers who have returned since 2009 because Australia rejected their applications, according to the Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department. Another 4,310 Sri Lankans who did not apply for refugee status were sent back when the Australian or Sri Lankan navy intercepted their boats before reaching Australian waters.
Many returnees face crippling debt after spending large sums to pay for the journey, and they can be fined 100,000 rupees ($700) for attempting to emigrate illegally. Some left Sri Lanka for economic reasons, while others, like Lingarajan, planned to claim asylum in the dangerous aftermath of the civil war.
Ethnic tensions exploded in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s when the Tamil Tigers began fighting for an independent homeland for the Tamil minority, which had suffered discrimination under the Sinhalese majority. The conflict finally ended in May 2009 after the Tigers were routed from their last stronghold in Mullaittivu, where Lingarajan lives.
He had managed to escape being pulled into a conflict that even spilled into ocean, where the Sea Tigers, the rebels’ marine division, staged audacious attacks on government naval vessels. But after the war, security agents began searching Tamil communities for anyone with connections to the defeated rebel group. Some people were simply questioned, while others disappeared.
