Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) parliamentarian Mujibur Rahman has urged President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to reconsider the government’s decision to deport Rohingya refugees rescued from a shipwrecked boat off the coast of Mullaitivu on 19 December.
Among the Rohingya asylum seekers, over 45 individuals are children, and many are reported to be infants, according to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.
The SJB MP said that sending the group back to Myanmar would also put the lives of their relatives at risk.
Noting that it is a violation of the Non-Refoulement Convention to prevent people fleeing a country for safety due to the prevailing conflict situation from returning to that country without their consent, Rahman urged President Dissanayake to demonstrate Sri Lanka’s commitment to human rights and ethnic harmony by ensuring the safety of refugees until they can be resettled in a safe country.
Rohingya Muslim refugees have also come under attacks in Sri Lanka. In 2017, a mob led by Buddhist monks and Sinhala extremists pelted stones at a United Nations shelter on the outskirts of the capital, forcing police to escort them to safety. No one has been held accountable so far.
A few of those refugees who could speak in broken Hindi language shared their ordeal and life back in Myanmar.
“We came here because we have been facing a lot of problems in Burma for a long time. Fighting is going on in Rakhine state. Constant bombing is also happening. Due to this the public are very scared. We are very disturbed and people keep on dying”.
They added despite their distressed situation, they were left with no option but to escape to save their lives.
Leave a comment