Search for Australian Tamils

The Australian Government has sent a team of officials to northern Sri Lanka to look at the camps says the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (ABC)

Among the detainees are three Australian Tamils.

The Australian detainees are a 62-year old man and two women aged 26 and 29.

According to a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australian diplomats based in Sri Lanka have been trying to "obtain urgent access" to these people.


Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Canberra, Senaka Walgampaya, told ABC that the identities of these people are not known.
"They have so far not identified the persons and when they are identified and if in fact they are there, then they will have to be questioned as to what they were doing," he said.

Forced Movement

The Australian head of the International Commission of Jurists, former New South Wales Supreme Court Judge and Attorney-General John Dowd, says that the purpose of the IDP camps may breach the convention against genocide.

"The convention covers forced movement of people. These people are being forcibly moved from the areas where they surrendered to other parts of Sri Lanka," he said.

"The real concern is that they're not going to be returned, that in fact they're going to move them, transfer the population, and put other people in."

Meanwhile the deputy chief of Australia's Navy, Rear Admiral David Thomas, made an unannounced visit to Colombo to meet the chief of Sri Lanka's defense staff. Says ABC.

The Department of Foreign Affairs says the Navy officials discussed people smuggling.