Rohingya refugees in Sri Lanka protest deliberate closure of U.N. workplace, fearing abandonment
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A gaggle of Rohingya refugees residing in Sri Lanka staged a protest outdoors the workplace of the U.N. refugee company Tuesday, saying they worry dropping their residing allowance as soon as the company’s workplace within the island nation closes on the finish of this yr.
The protesters additionally wish to be resettled abroad as a result of Sri Lanka doesn’t permit them to dwell there completely.
About 100 Rohingya refugees dwell in Sri Lanka, most of them rescued at sea by the navy whereas they have been making an attempt to achieve Indonesia after fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh.
About 740,000 Rohingya have been resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their properties in Myanmar to flee a brutal counterinsurgency marketing campaign by safety forces. But the camps in Bangladesh are squalid, with surging gang violence and rampant starvation, main many to flee once more.
Ruki Fernando, a rights activist in Sri Lanka, mentioned the refugees obtain primary allowance from the U.N. company and are supplied with restricted well being care by the Sri Lankan authorities. However, the refugee youngsters don’t obtain schooling and adults aren’t allowed to work.
“We didn’t intend to come to Sri Lanka, but were rescued off the seas in Sri Lanka and brought to Sri Lanka by the navy. We also had to endure a hard time in detention in Sri Lanka and still live a very hard life in a new country where we can’t speak our language, and many don’t have family members, relatives and friends,” the refugees mentioned in a petition to the U.N. company’s consultant.
The petition mentioned the refugees have been upset to be taught of the workplace’s upcoming closure and pleaded for it to “help us find a permanent solution in another country that will help us overcome uncertainty and not make us and our children permanently stateless.”
The U.N. refugee company couldn’t instantly be reached Tuesday.
The workplace in Sri Lanka was particularly energetic in the course of the nation’s quarter-century civil conflict which resulted in 2009.
