COLOMBO: Sri Lanka is violating international law by deporting Pakistani asylum-seekers by force and without allowing the United Nations to assess their asylum claims, the UN refugee agency said yesterday.
Colombo says the influx of illegal immigrants in the past year has become a burden on the Indian Ocean island’s resources and has potentially compromised state and regional security.
UNHCR said 88 Pakistanis have been sent home since August 1, with Lankan authorities seizing their passports and asylum-seeker certificates before sending them to Pakistan.
“By sending these people back, the government is in breach of its obligations under international law concerning the principle of no-forced-returns,” UNHCR said.
The agency urged Sri Lanka to stop deportations immediately and give UN officials access to scores of other asylum-seekers in detention to assess whether they required international protection.
According to UNHCR guidelines to countries, members of religious minorities, including Ahmadiyya Muslims, Christians and Shias in Pakistan, may be in need of protection and require particularly careful examination of their asylum claims. It said there are 157 asylum-seekers - 84 Pakistanis, 71 Afghans and two Iranians - in detention in Sri Lanka.
Chulananda Perera, Controller of Sri Lanka’s Immigration and Emigration Department, said authorities were deporting at least 10 people every day because they had come on tourist visas and had overstayed.
“They are not sent forcibly. It is the practice all over the world. If they have overstayed, we have to send them back.”
Sri Lankan authorities in June cancelled an on-arrival visa facility for Pakistanis after they said they found asylum-seekers misusing the facility to enter into the country.
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