COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
investigations. According to the source there is in general no difference in the way Tamil
and Sinhalese people are treated at the airport, and there are also examples of
Sinhalese human rights defenders who have been detained for investigations.‖
25.36 The Danish FFM report 525 further noted: ―UNHCR stated that Colombo has a mixed
population and that the general human rights situation in Colombo as regards living
conditions, access to employment and education should not pose systematic problems
to Tamils. According to the Norwegian Embassy, [in Colombo] a returnee from abroad
would not be visible in the community, and it would not be a problem to find housing and
a job.‖
25.37 A letter from the British High Commission (BHC), Colombo, dated 3 October 2011 526
reported on ―A flight chartered by the UK Border Agency specifically for the return of Sri
Lankan nationals who did not qualify for leave to enter or remain in the United
Kingdom‖, which left London on 28 September 2011 bound for Colombo and arrived at
Bandaranaike International Airport on 29 September 2011
―… with 50 enforced returnees, many of whom were failed asylum seekers. The ethnic
split of the returnees was 27 Tamil, 12 Muslim and 11 Sinhala, and there were 42 males
and 8 females. All of the returnees were in possession of their own valid national
passport or an Emergency Travel Document issued by the Sri Lankan High Commission
in London.
―All of the returnees were dropped at the entrance to the immigration arrivals hall and
were escorted to a seating area adjacent to the transfer desk which had been
specifically created for this flight. Officials from the Department of Immigration &
Emigration (DIE) had also arranged for desks to be placed in front of the seating area
and used by their officers to conduct interviews with the returnees.
―At approximately 1115hrs officials from the DIE began interviewing the returnees at the
desks in front of the seating area. The purpose of these interviews was to confirm the
identity and nationality of the returnee.‖
25.38 The same BHC letter 527 added that SIS (State Intelligence Service) and CID (Criminal
Investigations Department) carried out joint interviews with returnees regarding their
mode and route of travel to the UK, their activities in the UK and to ascertain any
previous criminal activity in Sri Lanka and further observed that:
―On completion of the SIS/CID interviews, the returnees were placed back in the seating
area. During the processing of the previous charter flight in June 2011, un-necessary
delays had occurred at this stage whilst waiting for the duty immigration officer to allow
them to proceed. For this charter DIE had removed this requirement and their officials
merely stamped each returnees passport or Emergency Travel Document once the
process had been completed.
525
Human Rights and Security Issues concerning Tamils in Sri Lanka, Report from Danish Immigration
Service’s fact-finding mission to Colombo, Sri Lanka 19 June to 3 July 2010, October 2010
http://www.nyidanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/899724D8-BEEB-4D9E-B3B2-
F2B28A505CCD/0/fact_finding_report_sri_lanka_2010.pdf date accessed 27 May 2011, p31
526
British High Commission Colombo, letter to the UKBA COI Service, dated 3 October 2011, available
upon request
527
British High Commission Colombo, letter to the UKBA COI Service, dated 3 October 2011
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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