Rohingya refugees in Lanka fear closure of UNHCR mission here

By Awarjitha Edirisooriya  

Nearly 100 Rohingya refugees in Sri Lanka have expressed  fear for their future as the United Nations High Commissioner for  Refugees (UNHCR) has decided to close its office.   A group of Rohingya refugees representing nearly 100  refugees living in Sri Lanka at present staged a protest in front of the UNHCR office in Colombo yesterday, and they urged that a permanent  solution be given with regard to their settlement. Until then, they be  given an allowance to live and also allow them to stay in the country,  the group urged.  

“As Sri Lanka will not give us citizenship and allow us to  stay here permanently, our main hope is that UNHCR will help us find  permanent resettlement in another country. We appeal to UNHCR not to  abandon us and help us find a permanent solution in another country that  will help us overcome uncertainties and not make us and our children  permanently stateless,” the group stated in a petition handed over to  the UNHCR Representative in Colombo.  

The group of refugees had been rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy in  December 2022 and initially, they had been sent to a Detention Centre in  Colombo. However, they had been given refugee status by the UN  agency and allowed to live until their future was decided. Originally  fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh, the group had fled Bangladeshi refugee  camps and hired a boat to flee to Indonesia. Sri Lanka Navy had found  them while they were stranded in the boat. 

 
Human Rights attorney Suren D. Perera told Daily Mirror  that the Sri Lankan government has the responsibility to keep them and  facilitate them until UNHCR resettle them in another country permanently.