Detained for three years in Diego Garcia, Tamil migrants arrive in the UK
Rescued at sea in October 2021, the few dozen Sri Lankan exiles, including children, applied for asylum in the Chagos Islands, which is still an uninhabited British overseas territory (with a large military base). The UK refused to accept them, despite complaints about their conditions, and view the current humanitarian solution as temporary.
London (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A group of 60 Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka who had been living in precarious conditions for more than three years on the remote island of Diego Garcia, a British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), have been moved to the United Kingdom.
They will be able to stay in the country for six months, with the financial support from the Foreign Office, which said that this humanitarian solution is “outside of the Immigration Rules” and of a temporary nature, to allow them to consider "long-term options".
The move to the UK marks a turning point in a story that human rights organisations have been criticising for some time.
The group of Tamils was rescued at sea on 3 October 2021, adrift after escaping from refugee camps in Madurai and Thiruchirapally in India, where those who fled Sri Lanka due to the civil war have been living for decades unable to obtain Indian citizenship.
They applied for asylum in the UK, opening a complicated legal-diplomatic game, on Diego Garcia, the southernmost Chagos island, about 500 kilometres south of the Maldives. The island is still British, and home to a joint UK-US base.
Tessa Gregory of UK law firm Leigh Day, which represents some of the migrants, said it was the "only sensible solution to end the humanitarian crisis" on the island. “This vulnerable group which includes 16 children have spent 38 months detained in the most squalid of conditions on Crown land... we hope our clients will now be able to seek safe haven and begin to rebuild their lives,” she added.
In early 2024, the BBC had access to Diego Garcia and the migrant camp for the first time, where Tamils were housed in military tents, some with leaks and rat nesting.
During their stay on the island, several refugees went on a hunger strike while many others engaged in self-harm or attempted suicide; afterwards, some migrants were transferred to Rwanda for medical treatment. They too have been taken to the United Kingdom.
Allegations of sexual assault and harassment inside the camp have been made with migrants telling the BBC that it was like living in "hell". Only two Tamil men with criminal convictions and another suspect remain on the island.
The arrival of the group of migrants in the United Kingdom comes at a time of uncertainty about the future of Diego Garcia; in October, the United Kingdom announced that it wanted to cede the entire archipelago to Mauritius.
Navinchandra Ramgoolam, Mauritius’s newly elected prime minister, said he had reservations about the deal, which was concluded by his predecessor and has yet to be signed. He ordered an independent review.
The British government argues that the Chagos Islands are "constitutionally distinct" from the United Kingdom, and this unusual status has led to the long-running legal dispute.
Most Tamils are awaiting a final decision on their applications for international protection, which was granted to eight who cannot be returned to Sri Lanka.
Successive British governments claimed that bringing Tamils to the UK would risk creating a secondary immigration route.
The current government has made arrangements to ensure that this does not happen, citing a deal to send future arrivals to Saint Helena, another overseas British territory in the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of miles away.
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