The Australian government has deported 100 failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, on a specially chartered Royal Australian Air Force flight.
The recent removal is the single largest group to have been sent to Sri Lanka, and the ninth this month according to the Sri Lankan government. It also brings the total number of people deported from Australia to Sri Lanka to 425 since August 13th, when Australia adopted new immigration policies.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen told reporters that those being deported were “economic refugees”, saying,
“Our humanitarian programme is for people who are at risk of persecution, not for people seeking to undertake economic migration,”
“We will continue these returns for as long as it takes.”
“We will continue to return people to Sri Lanka, we will continue to transfer people to Nauru, and now to Manus Island as well”.
However, reports from both Human Rights Watch and Tamils Against Genocide (see here and here), have documented repeated cases of torture and abuse of deportees, and demonstrated that returnees are at risk of persecution, calling for a halt in their deportation.
His comments came as Australia transferred the first group of asylum seekers to a newly opened camp in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. A group of 19 people, both from Sri Lanka and Iran were sent, made up of 7 families including four children.
See a video report from the BBC here.
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