SLN rescues twelve Tamil refugees from midsea

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 February 2005, 15:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) rescued 12 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, five children, three women and four men men, returning from South India from a sandbank in the midsea between Thanushkodi and Rameswaram Thursday, and handed them over to Talaimannar Police, security sources said.

They were produced in Mannar Magistrate Court Friday. Acting Magistrate Mr.Johnthasan released them and instructed the civil authorities concerned to send them back to their own areas in Jaffna and Mannar, legal sources said.

The refugees left Thanushkodi in South India in a boat Wednesday paying a sum of forty thousand rupees to four Indian boatmen, sources said. The Indian boatmen had left them on a sandbank telling them that they had reached Sri Lankan coastal area, sources added.

When the refugees were struggling on the sandbank without water and food, a SLN craft spotted them and with the assistance of some fishermen in the area rescued them and brought to the shore, sources said.