01/20/2004

Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka began fleeing to India in 1983 when violence broke out in their country between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamil militant group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Although many of the refugees have been repatriated to Sri Lanka over the years, at present 61,000 Sri Lankan Tamils are living in 103 government-run camps in the South Indian state of Tamilnadu. An additional 20,000 refugees live outside the camps.

Nearly all the refugees that Refugees International spoke to on a recent mission were eager to return to Sri Lanka, but they are hesitating for several reasons. First, they are not convinced that the conflict has been resolved. Many of the refugees had come to India once before and then returned to Sri Lanka at the time of a previous ceasefire between the LTTE and the Government, only to flee back to India when hostilities resumed between the two parties. As a result the refugees are cautious this time and will wait until peace seems more likely and security in Sri Lanka is better.  At present the peace process is not moving forward because of disagreement in the Government between the Prime Minister and the President over the issue of negotiations with the LTTE.   

The camp-based refugees told RI that they were grateful to the Indian government for permitting them to stay in India and making educational and health facilities available to their children. In particular, the Sri Lankan refugees were pleased with the opportunities they have for the education of their children in India, although a quota is imposed on Sri Lankan refugees attending universities. Life in the camps, however, has been far from easy for the refugees. They receive a small stipend each month and a few basic supplies from the Indian government, which are inadequate for survival. The refugees do whatever day jobs they can find, such as construction work or house painting. In one camp more than a thousand people have been living for a decade in crowded warehouses where each family lives in an 10 feet by 10 feet partitioned area. In other camps, refugees are living in “temporary” shelters, which were built prior to the refugee influx as short-term housing and are now falling apart. Basic facilities in the camps, such as toilets and water pumps, constructed by Indian authorities in the early 1990s, broke down long ago and have not been repaired.  Sanitary problems in the camps were cited by many as a serious problem.   

The refugees also have strict restrictions on their freedom of movement and are treated with some degree of suspicion by the Indian government. Following the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 by a suspected member of the LTTE, the refugee camps were moved away from coastal areas to isolated interior regions of Tamilnadu state so as to prevent contact amongst the refugees belonging to different camps. The movement of refugees outside the camps is restricted and the camps have morning and evening curfews. Families are often shifted from one camp to another in what is apparently a security precaution. The Indian Government does not permit international NGOs and aid agencies, including UNHCR, access to the camps. Refugees who disobey the rules may have their monthly stipend and rations cut off as punishment. Some of the refugees describe the camps as being nothing more than jails. Many of these restrictions seem arbitrary given that the 20,000 refugees outside the camp have no limitations on their movements, although they do not receive aid from the Indian government.  

Almost all the refugees we spoke to had been in India since 1995 and most since 1990.  They have had very few options to living in the camps, especially as returning to their homes in Sri Lanka was not feasible in the past due to the ongoing war between the LTTE and the Government. Some have taken extreme steps.  Mani, a refugee from the Jaffna district of Sri Lanka, told RI how she gave away her daughter in marriage to a Sri Lankan man based in Europe, whom she knew nothing about, as that seemed the only way out for her daughter from the bleak existence in the camp.

With the cease-fire agreement between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE in early 2002, the security situation has improved significantly in Sri Lanka.  Several thousand refugees have returned -- perhaps 10 percent of those in India --  to Sri Lanka. Some of the returning refugees have been assisted by UNHCR, which is facilitating their return via air, while others have paid fishermen thousands of rupees to smuggle them back by boat. UNHCR’s policy is not to encourage returns to Sri Lanka because of concerns about security, but the agency assists voluntary returnees.  That policy seems correct and prudent at the present time. None of the refugees alleged to us that the government of India is pressuring them to go home, although they fear that that pressure may come in the future.       

In addition to concerns about security in their homeland, an obstacle to return is that refugees want to take back with them the meager belongings they have gathered during the years living in the camps. If they return with UNHCR assistance by air, however, they can take back no more than 20 kilograms of their belongings. Therefore, many proposed that UNHCR arrange their transport home by ship so they can take all of their belongings, which consist usually of a few sticks of furniture, blankets, and cooking pots.

Other refugees are hesitant to return to Sri Lanka at this point because their homes lie in High Security Zones, occupied by the Sri Lankan army, from where all residents have been displaced. These refugees only want to return when they will be able to go back to their original homes. A reason also mentioned by the refugees for not returning is the fear that their children will be recruited by the LTTE, which continues to fill its ranks with child soldiers. An additional cause affecting return is the standard of educational facilities in parts of Sri Lanka, which is not as high as the standard in India. As Sri Lankan Tamils place a high value on education, they do not want to return before the education of their children is completed in India.

Refugees International, therefore, recommends that:

The Government of India

• Permit the UNHCR and other international aid agencies access to the camps to assist the refugees.
• Ease its restrictions on the movement of Sri Lankan refugees living in the camps.
  

• As progress toward peace is made, visit the refugee camps, ascertain the residents’ problems and concerns, and discuss with UNHCR and the Government of India, with input from the refugees, the details of repatriation to Sri Lanka, so that plans can be made on when and how to bring back the refugees safely and with dignity to their homeland.

• Continue to request permission from the Government of India to visit the camps to facilitate the return of refugees willing to go back at this time;
• Publish and have distributed in the camps a pamphlet outlining UNHCR policy toward returns to Sri Lanka to ensure there is no misunderstanding by the refugees;
• When conditions become more favorable for refugees returning to Sri Lanka, in collaboration with the Governments of Sri Lanka and India, provide an alternative means of transportation so that refugees have the option of returning by boat with all their belongings.
• In collaboration with the Government of India, make plans for the permanent resettlement or relocation of those few refugees who do not wish to return to Sri Lanka.