Tamil refugee seekers transiting in Thailand - The Globe and Mail

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Tamil refugee seekers transiting in Thailand - The Globe and Mail
'Entire operation fuelled by enormous amounts of money'
Tamil refugee seekers use Thailand as a transit location, waiting to ship for Canada, Canada's 'The Globe and Mail' reported.
Although some are in the country on two-week tourist visas, they sign nine-month leases on rooms at just over $100 per room per month, 'The Globe and Mail' said in a report published today (30 Aug).
'The entire operation is fuelled by enormous amounts of money', it said.
'Those familiar with the workings of an alleged Tamil Tiger human-smuggling ring say the Tamils are in fact in transit. They are waiting for the next boat to take them to Canada, as the MV Sun Sea did for 492 Tamil asylum seekers who arrived in British Columbia via Thailand this month. And there are at least several dozen more Tamils waiting at other addresses visited by The Globe and Mail in and around Bangkok', the report said.
The newspaper further states, 'Though claiming to be tourists, they show little interest in seeing the sights of the Thai capital...They rarely venture outside their one-room apartment on the outskirts of the Thai capital. They sit together on the bed, endlessly watching old movies in English and Thai that they barely understand'.
They have a standard answer when asked why they have come to Thailand: "Tourists. Arrived last week. Leaving next week."
"The people who arranged the Sun Sea are arranging another boat now. I don't know how long it will be [before it's ready to depart]," said a well-known member of Bangkok's Tamil community who spoke on the condition of anonymity, The Globe and Mail reported.
Asked whether any of them hope to travel onwards to Canada, the waiting men whisper among themselves in Tamil before denying any interest in following those who recently passed through Thailand before boarding the MV Sun Sea for Canada. The Tamils smile widely at the mention of faraway Canada, but stick to their line that they're in Thailand as tourists.
Staff at lodges says that it's actually a rotating cast of Tamils who use the apartments. "They don't stay here long. They come in groups of four or five, stay for a while, and then leave. Then another group comes," said a manager of a lodge.
If the Tamils are indeed hoping to go to Canada, they'll be following a trail blazed by those who recently made the perilous 10-week journey across the Pacific Ocean aboard the Sun Sea. Thai police sources say the majority of those who transited through Thailand before boarding the Sun Sea - which left from the southern port city of Songkhla some time in April - were recent arrivals who entered the country on tourist visas shortly before the ship departed.
On May 1, Thai authorities made note of an estimated 120 Tamils who travelled in a caravan from Bangkok to a fishing hamlet near Songkhla before apparently boarding small craft that took them to a rendezvous with the Sun Sea in the Gulf of Thailand. Two and a half weeks later, another group of 40 Tamil tourists checked in en masse at a hotel in Songkhla before heading to the port the same night and boarding fishing boats that are again believed to have met the Sun Sea, The Globe and Mail reported.
Courtesy : The Official Website of the Government of Sri Lanka