16 Sri Lankan Tamils from Jaffna and Mannar regions reached Tamil Nadu on Tuesday seeking refuge.
On Tuesday morning, a batch of six refugees – 1 man, 2 women and 3 children, was rescued by the Indian Coast Guard from an island in the Indian waters near Rameshwaram. The Coast Guard tweeted that they were trying to illegally migrate to India through a boat. They had been stranded at mid-sea by the boatman they had hired.
The Indian Express reported that the group had left Sri Lanka due to unemployment, inflation and shortage of food.
Massive protests are taking place in Sri Lanka as the country faces its worst-ever economic crisis in recent history. The Lanka govt has deployed police at petrol stations after reports of violence as people fought over fuel. All exams in the country have been indefinitely postponed due to an acute shortage of papers.
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