1,000 Sri Lankan refugees have returned: UNHCR

About 1,000 Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu had gone back to their homeland with the assistance of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) from January this year, Dr Montserrat Feixas Vihe, chief of mission, UNHCR, said here on Tuesday.

Delivering a lecture on Protection of refugees in India', organised by Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University, Vihe said UNHCR was ready to provide assistance to all refugees who want to return to their country.
She said India had been generous in treating the refugees from different countries, including Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Tibet and Afghanistan, by providing them adequate access to health and educational services and it did not force the refugees to leave the country. But, India was still not a signatory to the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and did not have a separate law to deal with the issues of refugees, she pointed out.
Stating that 147 countries had signed the convention, the UNHCR's chief of mission said every country must have a separate legal frame work for refugees so that their rights could be ensured even if any government had failed to address their problems.
Law Universityvice-chancellor V Vijayakumar said the university planned to train lecturers in refugee law.