Cargo ship with hundreds of asylum seekers docks in Canada

[mike r]

Source: Associated Press

At sea for three crowded and grueling months, hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers from war-ravaged Sri Lanka sought refuge in Canada on Friday when their rusty, ramshackle cargo ship finally edged just after sunrise into the shelter of a naval port. Some passengers stood on the deck, shaded by striped lengths of cloth, after the MV Sun Sea pulled in. Paramedics wearing surgical masks tended to them. A few were taken away on stretchers and whisked into ambulances at dockside; all were shielded from view by black umbrellas...

The arrival of the 490 refugees raised concerns among Canadian officials that the rebel Tamil Tigers, which fought and lost a bloody 25-year war for independence that ended in May 2009, was smuggling people into Canada, home to the largest Tamil community outside Sri Lanka and India. "Our goal is to ensure that our refugee system is not hijacked by criminals or terrorists," said Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, whose government labeled the Tamil Tigers a terrorist group in 2006. Last October, a ship carrying 76 Sri Lankan migrants was intercepted in Canadian waters. All are free while their cases are being processed...

Chitranganee Wagiswara, Sri Lanka's high commissioner to Canada, said now that the civil war is over, the Tigers might be trying to regroup in Canada, a country that has historically been a large source of their fundraising. Wagiswara said the group has huge support in Canada, pointing to the tens of thousands of Tamils who turned out at protests last year in Toronto and in Ottawa. Demonstrators waved Tiger flags and blocked streets, including a major highway. "We saw what happened last year during the height of the conflict. Some were quite militant, blocking the highway, and huge numbers coming out. The fear is that these sort of organizations could turn violent," she said.

The group, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, sought an independent state, claiming decades of discrimination by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority. The conflict killed more than 80,000 people and ended after a massive government operation against the Tigers. Wagiswara said Canada should not accept the Tamils' claims for refugee status and said the ship is part of a Tiger-linked human smuggling operation. She said the ship's captain, a man named "Vinod," is a known Tiger and smuggled arms for the group. Canadian officials say they are trying to determine whether any of the people on the vessel are members of the Tigers...


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cn_canada_migrant_ship

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. I just can't help it.....