Security clearance required as Sri Lanka opens route home for refugees in India

Sri Lankas cabinet has approved a framework to facilitate the voluntary return of refugees living in India who left the island during the armed conflict without valid travel documents, allowing them to re-enter without prosecution but subject to clearance by the State Intelligence Service.

The decision applies to Sri Lankan nationals later registered as refugees in India whose nationality has been confirmed through Sri Lankas diplomatic missions and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, many of whom have expressed a willingness to return. The policy was approved following legal advice from the Attorney General and presented by the Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs.

Under the framework, those who left before 1 August 2006 without valid travel documents will be allowed to return after obtaining clearance from the State Intelligence Service and confirmation that they are not linked to serious offences such as murder or treason. Those meeting the criteria will be issued temporary travel documents and permitted to enter through designated ports without facing prosecution under the Immigration and Emigration Act of 1948.

The cabinet also approved the return of those who left illegally between 1 August 2006 and 19 May 2009, the period covering the final phase of the war, likewise subject to verification of nationality and security clearance. Individuals found to have committed serious criminal offences will be detained on arrival and handed to the relevant authorities.

The government said the measures were intended to address humanitarian concerns while maintaining national security and enabling returning refugees to reintegrate within the existing legal framework.

A population in limbo

Around 89,000 Eelam Tamils were living in and outside refugee camps in Tamil Nadu in early 2026, according to Sri Lankan government estimates, roughly two-thirds of them in state-run camps. About 40 per cent were born in India, having never seen the country to which the framework would return them.

Tamils began crossing the Palk Strait in significant numbers after the Black July pogrom of 1983, with further waves during each escalation of the conflict, and the last large arrivals during the final phase of the war. UNHCR has facilitated voluntary repatriation for more than two decades, assisting nearly 18,000 returns between 2002 and February 2022, while Sri Lankan government figures put returns from Tamil Nadu at more than 18,500 between January 2009 and June 2025.

Successive attempts to accelerate returns have made limited progress. When Colombo appointed a committee on repatriation in 2022, it said that of some 58,000 refugees then in Tamil Nadu, only 3,800 were ready to return. Since 2014, in the absence of a tripartite agreement between UNHCR and the Indian and Sri Lankan governments, the agency has facilitated returns without actively encouraging them.

Why the framework was needed

The legal obstacle the framework addresses was thrown into relief by the case of a 70-year-old refugee who returned voluntarily from Tamil Nadu with the assistance of UNHCRs Chennai office, only to be detained on arrival at Palaly airport in Jaffna for having left the country years earlier by unauthorised means. The detention caused public anger in both countries, with the government attributing it to the automatic application of immigration law and promising to amend the legislation.

Refugees and those working with them have long set out conditions for return beyond the removal of the prosecution risk. These include guarantees of physical security and freedom from persecution, access to land and housing in the North-East, the restoration of civil documentation, and viable livelihoods, education and healthcare.

Many of those conditions remain unmet. More than 6,000 families in Valikamam North alone remain displaced within Sri Lanka, with weekly protests continuing at Myliddy and Palaly Junction over land still held by the military, while the deputy defence minister told parliament last month that a further 1,661 acres in the North-East would be permanently acquired and never returned. Land, housing and resettlement for war-affected families were among the issues Tamil parties raised with the Sri Lankan president this month without securing commitments.

The frameworks requirement of security clearance from the State Intelligence Service is also likely to draw scrutiny, given the agencys role in the surveillance of Tamils in the North-East and the continued monitoring of returnees, activists and families of the disappeared.