Sri Lanka: Further information: Family seeking asylum returns home voluntarily

A Pakistani Catholic family, who arrived in Colombo seeking asylum in July 2013 when their lives were threatened, quietly returned to Pakistan in September. Arrested after overstaying their visa, members of the John family were being detained in deplorable conditions when Amnesty International learnt that there were plans to deport them immediately from Sri Lanka on 31 May 2019. After the Easter Sunday attacks in April 2019, violent mobs displaced them, along with other families seeking asylum, from their home. While their deportation was successfully halted, Sri Lankan authorities did not offer them a safe alternative and the family was forced to return back to Pakistan as they could no longer live in the detention camp.

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