UK seeks to move 36 Diego Garcia asylum seekers to Romania
UNHCR has approved a request by the UK to transfer 36 Sri Lankan asylum seekers from Diego Garcia and Rwanda to a transit centre in Romania, the UN’s refugee agency told The New Humanitarian.
The 36 people are part of a group of 64 who arrived on the remote Indian Ocean island by boat, starting in October 2021, and have sought to claim asylum in the UK or elsewhere. The island is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which the UK agreed earlier this month to cede to Mauritius following years of negotiations.
Those who agree to the transfer will spend no more than six months in UNHCR’s Emergency Transit Centre (ETC) in Timișoara, Romania. During that time, “the UK will make arrangements for their voluntary repatriation or onward voluntary transfer to a country other than Romania,” UNHCR communications officer Carlotta Wolf told The New Humanitarian.
Those who do not accept repatriation or transfer elsewhere will be admitted to the UK after six months, according to a document filed in a UK court by lawyers representing some of the asylum seekers. The New Humanitarian has reviewed the document.
However, the lawyers are seeking to have their clients brought to the UK immediately. One of the lawyers told the court on 9 October that it would be harmful to require their clients, who have already spent several years in refugee camps, to spend another six months in a camp in Romania.
“Six months in Romanian detention will cause them to suffer further avoidable harm,” the court document says. “The ETC is a detention facility: there are metal bars on the windows and residents cannot leave without an escort and even then only for limited and closely supervised activity.”
A BIOT official explained the Romania plan as a way to prevent the islands from becoming a direct migration route to the UK, one of the asylum seekers said. But lawyers for the asylum seekers have argued that the forthcoming transfer of the islands to Mauritius already ensures this.
Many of the asylum seekers say they have been detained, tortured, or sexually abused by Sri Lankan security forces because of their Tamil ethnicity and presumed links to Tamil separatists. Some were born in refugee camps in India and say they were abused by authorities there.
Dozens have attempted suicide in response to conditions on Diego Garcia, which their lawyers say amounts to unlawful detention. Following a monitoring visit in November 2023, UNHCR called for their urgent relocation, saying there was “a significant risk of suicide and attempted suicide and further incidents of self-harm”.
Those approved for transfer to Romania include seven people whom BIOT authorities have decided would be at risk if returned to Sri Lanka, plus 29 others who are part of families with children, Wolf said.
The timeframe for the transfers was described by some of the asylum seekers’ lawyers as soon but not immediate, according to one asylum seeker who was sent from Diego Garcia to Rwanda last year for medical treatment.
Wolf said the transfers still require authorisation by the Romanian government, which will involve security screenings for each person.
“We have now made an offer to relocate the most vulnerable migrants – including all children – to a specialist UNHCR facility,” a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said. “This will provide greater safety and wellbeing while their legal claims are processed.”
Families with children were also given the option of voluntary repatriation, as an alternative to Romania. This would come with incentives such as £3,000 per person, three years of medical insurance, and up to three years of paid accommodation and job training, according to letters shared with the asylum seekers by the UK government and seen by The New Humanitarian.
The rest of the group on Diego Garcia – 27 single men whose asylum claims are pending and one whose asylum claim was accepted but has a criminal record – will remain on Diego Garcia indefinitely, according to the court document.
The lawyers’ challenge to the Romania offer comes one day after BIOT Acting Commissioner Nishi Dholakia told the asylum seekers that the UK government would make different offers to different people.
“Some people will receive offers to relocate to another safe country, and others will receive an offer for voluntary return,” he said, according to a recording of the call reviewed by The New Humanitarian. “We ask that you do not try and guess what your offer will be.”
A previous suggestion in June by then-commissioner Paul Candler to prioritise certain vulnerable asylum seekers for admission to the UK resulted in 22 men attempting suicide in protest. Candler subsequently asked the FCDO to accept the entire group. He resigned a month later, citing “a significant risk of escalation, including hunger strikes and potential violence”, according to the court document.
During the court hearing, a lawyer representing one of the asylum seekers cautioned that news of being left behind on Diego Garcia could lead to mass acts of self-harm. “The disclosure of this information to people in the camp could cause serious safeguarding concerns,” the court document says.
The lawyers are also seeking to have the asylum seekers removed from the island before the UK officially cedes sovereignty.
“The crisis of the refugee camp on Diego Garcia needs to be resolved before sovereignty over Diego Garcia is returned to Mauritius,” the document says, adding that Prime Minister Keir Starmer had promised that this “will happen ‘as quickly as possible’”.
Edited by Andrew Gully.
