RANJITH SOYSA 

The arrival of the above group of people in Sri Lanka presents a big challenge to the Navy and our border protection services as any positive signal emanating from the Government in accepting them as refugees will open Sri Lanka to the influx of boat people which will be extremely difficult to control.

At present, there are over 1 million Rohingyas mainly in the Cox Bazar region of Bangladesh which is considered as the world’s largest refugee camp. There are thousands of Rohingyas who fled Myanmar and are now living as refugees in Malaysia and Indonesia too.

The organized arrival of refugees in search of greener pastures is a common problem in many parts of the world. The people smugglers who are well organized await the favourable signals such as the recognition of refugees and acceptance of illegal arrivals by the governments and NGOs in the receiving countries and will contribute to swell the arrival numbers creating an unenviable situation both for the country’s economic and social structures and to the illegal refugees by way of accidental deaths. The tragic stories of deaths and disappearance of hundreds of ‘refugees’ in the Mexican/ US border and European border areas make anyone open his eyes.

Australia planned well in countering the manoeuvres of human smugglers by adopting a firm policy of establishing offshore refugee camps and joint action in arresting possible sources of illegal migrants and establishing strong border operations. They also took action to deport the illegal travellers to their original arrival points, Sri Lanka, perhaps should plan such steps before becoming a greener pasture for possible influx of illegal arrivals.

RANJITH SOYSA