Bombay Durpun - Tamil migrants reach UK after 'darkest' time in Chagos camp

They are among more than 60 people, including 12 children, mostly Tamils from Sri Lanka and India, who were brought to Britain last week after years stuck in a legal limbo.

The migrants, who had been rescued after getting into trouble in the waters off the Chagos Archipelago, became the first people to ever file asylum claims with London from Diego Garcia, the largest island in the chain.

Kala, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, was initially told when she arrived on the base in October 2021 that she would stay there for just two days. That turned into more than three years.

She and her two children were housed with other migrants in a camp the size of a football pitch.

The accommodation was controversial from the start, with the migrants staging multiple hunger strikes to denounce poor conditions, amid reports of sexual assault and harassment.

"We suffered a lot in this camp. Our living places lacked basic facilities," Kala told AFP through an interpreter.

"We had to risk our lives to come here in boats. When we were told that we were going to stay in the tents, it was even worse than that."

- Legal challenges -

Their claims were caught up in a complex legal dispute as the islands, renamed the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), are "constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK", according to the government in London.

Successive British foreign ministers remained reluctant to bring them to the UK, fearing it would open a new immigration route.

"It was an unprecedented and exceptional situation," said Maria Petrova-Collins, a lawyer at Duncan Lewis Solicitors and part of a UK-based team representing some of the migrants.

Conditions in the camp were "inhumane", she told AFP.

The lawyers faced several challenges, including a legal hearing being cancelled "at the last minute" when the lawyers and a British judge were denied access to the US-run military base, she said.

Another of the new arrivals, Nishanth, whose name has also been changed, said the camp was "rat-infested".

He showed AFP videos of cramped tarpaulin tents with water seeping through holes, bedsheets hung for privacy between rows of makeshift beds, as well as rats, rodent droppings and insects.

- Self-harm -

Kala said her children's feet became infected as they did not have proper shoes and they found it hard to sleep at night.

"During their sleep, rats used to go over there, here and there. And when they felt them, they woke up and cried."

The camp's inhabitants accused the security guards of not listening to their complaints. "We informed the authorities. But they did not do anything. They said they would do it. But they don't care," Nishanth said.

Petrova-Collins said many of the migrants were victims of "ill-treatment and torture" in their home countries.

"Unfortunately, the conditions in Diego Garcia and the three years they lived in uncertainty about what was going to happen to them contributed to that trauma," Petrova-Collins said.

"Some of our clients tried to commit suicide, some of them self-harmed," she said.

In 2023, around five migrants had to be transferred to Rwanda for emergency medical treatment after suicide attempts, and a 2024 safeguarding report from a medical team said the camp was in "complete crisis".

- 'Darkest period' -

"It was the darkest period of our life," said Nishanth, showing scars on his forearm from where he had self-harmed.

"We were separated from this world during our stay there. We knew we were in a different world."

In October, Britain said it would hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after a decades-long dispute, but would continue to maintain the Diego Garcia military base that plays a key role for US operations.

The military facility, which is part of the British overseas territories and leased to the United States, was used by US long-range bombers during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As part of the agreement, Mauritius will take responsibility for any future migrants arriving on the territory, from which Chagos islanders were expelled by the UK in the 1970s as the military base was developed.

The Tamil migrants have been granted six months to remain in the UK and file asylum claims. Some of them were already granted international protection while on Diego Garcia.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said the decision was a "one-off measure".

"We have always been clear that Diego Garcia was not a suitable long-term location for migrants which is why we've taken steps to bring them to the UK as a one-off measure to ensure their continued welfare and safety", it said.

Their arrival marks a "big week for the world of human rights and justice" said Petrova-Collins, who hopes the legal battle "sets a precedent" that future crises should be handled "with more compassion, with more efficiency".

P.Raval--BD