COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
Country of Origin Information Service
UK Border Agency
3 October 2011
Dear colleague,
Re: UKBA Charter Flight of Returnees – 28/29 September 2011
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, left London at 1500hrs
on 28 September 2011 bound for Colombo. Flight LS6286 arrived at Bandaranaike International
Airport at 1020hrs 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.
Prior negotiations had taken place in both London and Colombo between the UK and Sri
Lankan governments under the 2004 bilateral readmission agreement in order to facilitate the
redocumentation of the returnees, the necessary authorisations for the aircraft, and the smooth
arrival and processing of the returnees on arrival in Sri Lanka. It was agreed by the government
of Sri Lanka that UKBA could return up to 50 returnees on the flight. The experience gained
during the previous UKBA charter flight in June 2011 allowed all parties to review procedures
ahead of the flights‘ arrival.
The aircraft was positioned on a stand some distance from the main terminal building. It was
met by the handling agents, Sri Lankan Airlines, and airport security officials. After some
minutes all 50 returnees were placed on one bus with a small number of airport security officials
and driven to the main airport terminal. 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.
The escorting officers who had accompanied the returnees on the flight were brought to the
airport terminal in two further buses. Copies of the final manifest listing the names of the 50
returnees were handed to DIE officials along with a bag containing all of their travel documents.
Two bags containing medication for many of the returnees was also handed to the DIE officials.
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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