The Sri Lankan economic crisis—rising costs of food and long queues for fuel are pushing out Sri Lankan families to Tamil Nadu. The families that migrated to India hail from Jaffna and Kokupadaiyan in northern Sri Lanka.
On Wednesday, Sri Lankan newspaper Times Online reported: "Four families that include three males, six females and eight children are currently sheltered in Rameswaram facing legal action followed by inquiries from Indian authorities". The newspaper said "sixteen Sri Lankan nationals took an illegal passage to India via Mannar in three fishing boats without proper documents" on Tuesday due to prohibitive costs of living.
Two of the families had earlier spent time in India as refugees during the Sri Lanka civil war.
Map depicts the travel route taken by the Sri Lankan nationals to sail to India from Mannar island to Rameshwaram
The third family was rescued by the Indian Coast Guard close to a sand dune in Dhanushkodi, India. A Coast Guard release said that the six refugees who were rescued included a man, two women and three children. After the coast guard came to know about the migration of the distressed Sri Lankan nationals, it sent a hovercraft to locate them. The release said: "… the hovercraft located six persons from the fourth island of Rameshwaram".
#SwiftOperation
Today, in the morning hours, @IndiaCoastGuard apprehended 06 Sri Lankan nationals including 03 children from the fourth island near #Rameshwaram #TamilNadu. They were trying to migrate illegally from #SriLanka to #India through a #boat.@DefenceMinIndia @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/AgnDBt1zaE— Indian Coast Guard (@IndiaCoastGuard) March 22, 2022
The rescued family left Mannar on the Sri Lankan coast on Monday night illegally in a hired boat. The family told newspersons that the boatman dumped them on a sand dune in Rameshwaran and went back to Sri Lanka. They paid Rs 50,000 in Sri Lankan currency for the approximately 50-km trip.
One of the families speaking with Indian journalists said that there was no work and the prices of bread and milk had increased to such an extent that they could not feed their children. Also, they spent considerable time searching for water and standing in queues for fuel. The severe poawer shortage too added to their misery.
With various commodities in short supply, Sri Lanka has deployed troops at fuel stations as the queues grow longer and people impatient.
The Sri Lankans who reached India as refugees say that they could not survive due to the high cost of living and unable to feed their children. They add that, what they earn is not enough to lead a life here. #SriLanka pic.twitter.com/YhW7PNNIUI
— Kavinthan (@Kavinthans) March 22, 2022
Sri Lanka is in the grip of a severe economic crisis due to a continuing shortfall in foreign exchange reserves due to the Covid-19 pandemic which shuttered its tourism-driven economy. The 2019 Easter bombings too impacted the country's tourism sector. The island nation also faces problems due to spiralling debt from Chinese infrastructure projects.
India is helping the Sri Lankan government beat the economic crisis. During Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa's visit to India last week, New Delhi extended a $1 billion credit facility to Colombo, taking the total to $2.4 billion this year. The island nation is also negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan.
