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ejected and then, when they returned to Sri Lanka, detained, tortured and/or<br />
sexually abused, and had to pay a ransom to escape abroad a second time.<br />
In Asia, the situation for asylum seekers is even worse. In Thailand, Malaysia<br />
and India, Tamils face a very real risk of being rounded up by the local<br />
authorities and sent back to Sri Lanka before they have even made an asylum<br />
application. Registration with the local office of UNHCR does not seem to offer<br />
any protection whatsoever against forced return. One female Tamil torture and<br />
sexual violence survivor, hiding in Asia and unable to access medical care,<br />
described her life in this environment:<br />
“I live in fear that I will be found by the police in this country and be sent home<br />
where all the physical and sexual abuse will start all over once again. I live with<br />
this fear all the time. I am longing to live in a peaceful environment. I live with<br />
recurring thoughts of ending my life. Perhaps it would have been better for me<br />
to have died in the war or on that day I swallowed something that I had hoped<br />
would kill me rather than to go through this agony that keeps disturbing my<br />
mind. Yet I have a desire to live, but I do not know how to.”<br />
(Witness Number Withheld for Protection Reasons)<br />
46
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