Sri Lankans fleeing to India owing to economic crisis

Sri Lankans have begun to flee to India owing to the economic crisis and 16 have been detained in Dhanushkodi yesterday (Tuesday).

According to the Indian media, six Sri Lankan Tamils, including three children, who fled the island nation and were stranded on a sandbar off Dhanushkodi were rescued by the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) personnel early on Tuesday.

According to the Police, another 10 Sri Lankan Tamils were held at Palam near Dhanushkodi later in the day. The group of two men, three women, three girls and two boys were taken to the Dhanuskodi Marine police station. The Indian Coast Guard and Q-branch sleuths are questioning them, the Express News Service reported.

The first group of refugees were identified as Gajendran (24), his wife Mary Clarin (23), and their four-month-old child Nisanth from Jaffna and Tiori (28) and her two children Esthar (9) and Moses (6) from Kokupadaiyan.

According to Tiori, the gas cylinder price has increased from SLR (Sri Lankan Rupee) 1,900 to 4,000 and price of rice is up from SLR 130 to 230 per kg. A single egg costs SLR 35. (One Sri Lankan Rupee is equal to 0.27 Indian Rupee).

?We could not find any jobs, and our wages, too, were falling. As the economic hardship was too much to bear, we decided to flee to India,? Gajendran told reporters after the coast guard interrogated them at Mandapam. ?Gajendran, a former inmate of a refugee camp in Erode, had returned to Sri Lanka just a year ago.

According to a statement, an ICG team rescued the Lankan Tamils from fourth island, Rameshwaram, after it got information from Q Branch police. ICGS, Mandapam, launched a hovercraft and at 10.30am they located the refugees. Sources said they left Peshalai in Sri Lanka at 10.30pm on Monday on a fishing boat and landed on the fourth island at 01.30 am on Tuesday. The refugees are now under the custody of Coastal Security Group, Mandapam and will be booked under the Passports Act.

“It is not the Sri Lanka we know. Being a widow, life has become much harder for me; I was struggling to raise my two children. We do not know who brought us here, we just boarded a boat and we were brought here,” Tiori said.? (Colombo Gazette)