LTTE spokesman’s family gets asylum in Sweden

9 April 2013 06:04 am Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 19 Bookmark

CHATURANGA PRADEEP SAMARAWICKRAMA Follow

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The wife and children of Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan, who had been an LTTE spokesman have been given asylum in Sweden, a former LTTE reader Lohini Rathimohan told the BBC in an interview.

She said that she also sailed in a refugee boat with them.

Lohini is also among the refugees, who are now staying in Dubai under UNHCR care. When the boat they were sailing had broken down at sea, they contacted UN Refugees unit and were rescued by a ship sailing from Singapore to Dubai.

Lohini Rathimohan spoke to BBC, when she was one among the19 asylum seekers, detained in Dubai under care of UNHCR. Human Rights Watch has requested UNHCR not to send them back to Sri Lanka.

She had disclosed that she was working as a newsreader at the LTTE run television station, and after the war, she escaped to India, and her husband is still in India.

Of the 46 persons who were with her in the refugee boat, UNHCR has approved 39 as refugees and seven had been sent back to Sri Lanka.

“Out of the approved 39 persons, the US and Sweden have granted asylum to 20, which included the wife and children of the LTTE spokesman. The remaining 19 persons, including herself, are to be sent back to Sri Lanka.

“If she were sent back, she fears for her life, Lohini said, as her family has also strongly urged her not to return and she also knows the fate that befell Isaipriya, who was also a newsreader in the LTTE television and had been killed in Sri Lanka.