By Raveena Aulakh | The Star
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“When I spoke to him last, he had escaped Sri Lanka and was in Thailand,” said a Scarborough mother, who didn’t want her name used. The refugee boat’s voyage is believed to be have started in southeast Asia.
That was months ago and she says her brother, 24, who worked at a textile store before being thrown into a government camp, was planning, somehow, to come to Canada.
“Now all I can do is pray that he made it,” she said in an interview through a translator.
Organizations like Canadian Tamil Congress have been bombarded with questions by dozens of Tamil families across Canada, who believe their relatives were among the 490 refugees aboard the Sun Sea.
Some people haven’t heard from their relatives in northern Sri Lanka for six months and “hope they made it to this boat,” said Jag Shanmugalingham, a volunteer with the organization. “They are desperately clinging to that hope.”
In the past couple of days, at least 90 families have called and submitted information about 150 relatives, who they believe came aboard the boat, said Shanmugalingham.
One woman called and said she believed 11 members of her family were aboard the Sun Sea. Another said he had at least 6 family members aboard.
It’s an emotional time for families, said Shanmugalingham. Some people get really upset when they discover that it might be days or weeks before they can find the names of the 490 refugees.
“There’s been a lot of crying, pleading as people ask us to connect them with the people on the boat,” he said. “We are telling them to be patient but give us all information they can so that lawyers can prove the identities of these people and that they have nothing to do with Tamil Tigers.”
© The Star
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