Being a refugee in Sri Lanka amid a biting economic downturn

Except for some distance from threat and persecution, refugee life is far from easy

The two large beds, with no gap in between, occupy almost the entire area of the room, barely 12 X 8 feet. The Fareeduns’ family of four has been using the space, which also has a small TV on the wall, a sewing machine, and a side table crowded with water bottles, as their living room-cum-study-cum-bedroom for nearly a decade.

From the time they left Pakistan and sought refuge in Sri Lanka in 2012 — their daughters were one and three then — fleeing persecution after the couple’s fiercely opposed inter-caste marriage, the family has endured in this cramped space, amid uncertainty over their resettlement. “This long wait has been agonising for us,” said Riffat Fareedun, 39, a refugee from Karachi living in Sri Lanka’s coastal city of Negombo, about 40 km north of Colombo.

Except for some distance from threat and persecution, refugee life is far from easy. It is marked by endless paperwork, tough living conditions in an unfamiliar place, and invariably, a harrowing wait. They could no longer live in the only home they knew and fled, and they have no idea where or when they might feel at home again.

Families like Ms. Fareedun’s are leading especially precarious lives now amid Sri Lanka’s economic downturn, marked by sharp inflation, soaring living costs and shortages, that has prompted scores of Sri Lankans to desperately leave the country. Sri Lanka’s Immigration and Emigration Department has issued 7 lakh passports this year, a sharp increase from 2021 and a record high, according to authorities. Under enormous economic pressure, many are attempting to leave by illegal means as well. This year alone, the Navy has intercepted nearly 1,000 Sri Lankans allegedly leaving the country by boats.

Regardless of the dire situation in Sri Lanka, refugees cannot leave the island until their papers are cleared by office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). And that could take upto a decade or more, as the Fareeduns’ experience shows.

While fleeing persecution in countries in the neighbourhood, many land in Sri Lanka, which has a relatively easier visa regime. Once they arrive, they must go through different stages from being asylum seekers, to being recognised as refugees, before finally qualifying for resettlement elsewhere. This is because Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention. It does not have laws or mechanisms for permanent resettlement of refugees coming in and can, at best, host them only temporarily.

According to date from the UNHCR, Sri Lanka currently has a little over 800 persons in total, mostly from Pakistan and Afghanistan, seeking resettlement. Of them, about 600 are refugees while some 160 are asylum seekers awaiting refugee status that makes them eligible for nominal monthly assistance from the agency. Following the island nation’s painful economic crash, the UN refugee agency recognised the need to double this monthly allowance to little over LKR 40,000 (roughly ₹ 9,000), refugee families said.