UK unlawfully detained Sri Lankan migrants on Chagos island: court

Members of the Chagossian community gather with banners and placards outside parliament to protest against the government's decision to hand the Chagos Islands over to Mauritius, on October 7, 2024. In Crawley, a town south of London that is home to a large Chagossian community, members of the diaspora described the announcement as the latest in a long line of injustices. (Photo by Adrian DENNIS / AFP)

(AFP) - The UK government unlawfully detained Sri Lankan migrants on a remote military base for more than two years, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Supreme Court ruled on Monday.

Sixty-four Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers were held in "prison"-like camps on Diego Garcia, a British-American military base which is part of the Chagos islands -- renamed in 1965 by the UK as BIOT -- after being rescued at sea, according to the ruling.

Many of them claimed they were fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka, where Tamils are a historically oppressed minority, and sought international protection once they arrived on Diego Garcia.

Earlier this month, most of the migrants were finally brought to the UK and given a chance to apply for asylum from London.

Successive British foreign secretaries had been reluctant to allow them into the UK, fearing it would open a new irregular immigration route via the islands.

In a ruling published on Monday, Margaret Obi, the acting judge of the BIOT supreme court, said that the migrants were "unlawfully detained" for an "extraordinarily long time" on the military base, with the UK government now potentially facing heavy damages.

The Sri Lankans were held in a camp the size of a football pitch and alleged that they faced "prison"-like conditions, including a lack of privacy and an infestation of rats.

The camp was also rife with cases of migrants attempting to self-harm due to poor mental health.

While the BIOT commissioner claimed they were "free to leave" and therefore not detained, Obi ruled that this was "not a genuine choice", since the migrants had sought international protection and could not return to Sri Lanka.

"It is unsurprising that the claimants feel as if they are in a prison; that is exactly what it is, in all but name," the judge said.

The camp was manned by security guards at all times and there were "punishments" imposed for leaving the camp without permission, according to the ruling.

The asylum seekers were only granted bail earlier this year by Obi to access a trail and the beaches on the island, after months of being barred from leaving the camp.

In the ruling, the judge also found that in July the UK Home Office "impeded" the progress of international protection claims fearing potential implications for the previous Conservative government's Rwanda scheme, which since then has been scrapped.

© Agence France-Presse