Dozens of people stranded in hellish conditions for more than three years on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia have arrived in the UK and told of their relief that their journey is over.
Lawyers and campaigners hailed the arrival of 47 Sri Lankan Tamils on Monday night as a “big day for justice”, with a further eight arriving on Tuesday morning from Rwanda, where they had been receiving medical treatment. Twelve children were among them.
They are staying in a hotel on the outskirts of London, where some of the children were seen running around excitedly on Tuesday. The group seemed relaxed about the freezing temperatures and unfamiliar surroundings.
“We cannot believe we are finally in the UK,” said one man. “We feel we have reached paradise.”
Most found themselves in Diego Garcia – part of the Chagos Islands that the UK recently returned to Mauritius – in October 2021 after a boat in which they were travelling hoping to reach Canada to claim asylum got into difficulty.
“If our lives had been good in our home country we never would have set off on a dangerous journey across the ocean in a leaking boat,” said another man. “I thought we would all die in the sea … I kept asking myself if it was better to try to save the life of one person on board or for us all to die together in the sea.”
Their arrival on the tropical island was viewed as a headache for successive home secretaries, who feared that bringing them to the UK would open a new migration route. There have been long-running legal battles about their fate, with a judge and legal teams flying out to the island to hear a legal challenge to determine whether the Tamils were being unlawfully detained.
“We thought we would stay on this island for three days but we ended up staying there for three years,” said one woman sadly.
On Monday, a government spokesperson described the move as a “one-off” due to the exceptional nature of the situation.
“This government inherited a deeply troubling situation that remained unresolved under the last administration for years,” the spokesperson said.
Tessa Gregory, of the UK law firm Leigh Day, which represents some of the Tamils, said the group had “spent 38 months detained in the most squalid of conditions”, adding: “We hope our clients will now be able to seek safe haven and begin to rebuild their lives.”
One woman said: “I was born the day my parents arrived in a refugee camp in India and have spent my whole life either in the refugee camp in India or in the camp in Diego Garcia. To be a refugee is to lead an incomplete life. The reason we went through this difficult journey is in the hope that our children do not have to be refugees.”
They had given up on ever being set free from the island until UK lawyers got involved in their cases.
“Until then nobody in the whole wide world knew we were trapped on this island,” said one man. “Then we started to glimpse hope.”
The UK government has shut down the possibility of future asylum seekers arriving in the UK via Diego Garcia. Any arrivals there from now on will be sent to the island of Saint Helena, 5,000 miles away. When the deal to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius excluding the US military base on Diego Garcia is finalised, any arrivals seeking asylum will have their claims processed in Mauritius.
While the Tamils were on the island living in rat-infested, leaking tents there were mass suicide attempts, many hunger strikes and numerous incidents of self-harm –along with allegations of sexual assault and harassment within the camp.
Two men with criminal convictions and another under investigation remain on the island.
Eight of the Tamils have been granted international protection while on Diego Garcia. The group have been granted six months’ entry to the UK outside the immigration rules and will not be allowed to work. It is not known what will happen to them after that.
Simon Robinson, of Duncan Lewis solicitors, who also represents some of the group, said: “We are delighted to welcome our clients to the UK. The decision to grant them leave to remain and allow them to enter the UK has brought to an end years of detention in inhumane conditions.
“It is a big day for justice, and an opportunity for a fresh start for our clients.”
He also called for further scrutiny of how the Tamils were treated on the island.
