London, the British government also sends Tamil refugees to Rwanda who attempted suicide on the island of Diego Garcia by swallowing needles and blades

LONDON (AsiaNews) – The UK has sent a letter to two Tamil asylum-seekers hospitalized in Kigali, Rwanda after attempting suicide, saying they will be taken to a “safe third country”. The man and woman, both aged 22, are part of a group of refugees – including torture victims in Sri Lanka – rescued by the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean as they attempted to reach Canada in October 2021 On that date, UK ships had escorted them to Diego Garcia Island, part of the Chagos Archipelago south of the Maldives, a small group of islands that the UK calls the British Indian Ocean Territory and continues on to claim sovereignty, despite a UN court ruling saying they are part of Mauritius.

Suicide attempts. On 3 March, five people were flown to a military hospital in Rwanda to receive medical treatment following their deteriorating health. Second The New Humanitarian – an independent, non-profit news agency focusing on humanitarian stories in often forgotten, underreported, misunderstood or ignored regions – were allegedly undergoing psychotherapy for having attempted suicide after 18 months of confinement, by attempting to swallow needles and the blade of a pencil sharpener at the news that they would be sent back to Sri Lanka. At least 19 minors and 49 adults are currently being held at a military base jointly administered by the United Kingdom and the United States and built in the 1960s and 1970s after the island’s 27 square kilometer population was evicted.

Tortured and sexually abused. Many said they were tortured and sexually abused by Sri Lankan security forces for alleged ties to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil, a separatist group that fought for independence against the Sri Lankan government during a 26 years ended only in 2009. On March 26, one of the five people in Rwanda for medical treatment recounted in a letter the conditions of detention at the Diego Garcia base: “They put barbed wire fences around us and keep us like animals . If they send me to the country, Sri Lanka I will be tortured and beaten to death.”

In Rwanda all those who land in the UK. In recent days, the commissioner for the British Indian Ocean Territory, Paul Candler, sent a letter to the two Tamil refugees in which he states that they will not be sent back to Sri Lanka but will be relocated to a “safe third country” as soon as this has been singled out. According to the lawyers who are following the case, this safe country should be the United Kingdom, but London has been working for some time to send to Rwanda – whose government has been criticized because it respects human rights and does not guarantee people’s safety – all those who arrive on British shores “irregularly”. About fifty people detained on the island of Diego Garcia have been refused applications for international protection and the cases are being examined by some legal experts, as is the agreement between the British and Rwandan governments signed in 2022 to host migrants .