Sri Lankan asylum seekers threaten hunger strike in Malaysia
By IANSTuesday, May 25, 2010
KUALA LUMPUR - A group of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers has threatened to go on hunger strike if they are sent back home.
They have been detained here by Malaysian authorities.
Sri Lanka Tamil Refugees Humanitarian Programme coordinator Eashvara Lingam said the group would go on strike unless the Malaysian government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) fulfil their demand to be sent to a third country without further delay.
“They also demand for them not to be forcibly sent back to Sri Lanka where they will face persecution by its army and for authorities to permit human rights activists and other NGO leaders to visit them in the camps,” he said in a statement here Tuesday.
Eashvara said he had received reports from the detainees that they were not getting clean water, and were supplied with only low quality and stale food, The Star online reported.
“However, they appreciate the Malaysian authorities for saving them from the sea,” he said.
Malaysia is home to Tamils, both from India and Sri Lanka. Tamils form a bulk of the ethnic Indian population of 1.7 million.
