UNHCR wants Sri Lanka-India ferry service to resume

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR has Thursday appealed for the resumption of ferry services between India and Sri Lanka.

Golam Abbas, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Colombo has said that the resumption of ferry service would help Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from India to return home.

“We look forward to the resumption of the ferry service between India and Sri Lanka that would be of enormous support to those who wish to return,” Abbas has said.

On Wednesday, over 40 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees from various camps in Tamil Nadu voluntarily left for Sri Lanka from Chennai and Tiruchirappalli with the assistance of UNHCR.

The total number of refugees whose return from India has been facilitated by the UNHCR this year so far has now risen to 147, according to Press Trust of India.

Over 100,000 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka live in Tamil Nadu. Out of those, about 65,000 live in 107 camps spread across the state.

The returnees have said that they had escaped Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and had lived in camps in Tamil Nadu since as far back as 1990.

The India-Lanka ferry service between Tuticorin and Colombo was resumed in June 2011 after a lapse of nearly 30-years. However it was scrapped a year later as it did not prove to be a commercially viable operation.

During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Colombo in March, the two countries had expressed strong willingness to resume the service as early as possible.

Plans to build a new pier at Thalaimannar with Indian assistance to pave the way for resumption of ferry service between Thalaimannar and Rameswaram have been discussed.