Ex-PM Truss wanted stranded migrants brought to UK

Ex-PM Liz Truss called for asylum seekers stranded on a tiny British territory in the Indian Ocean to be brought to the UK for their own safety.

The request was made in an email sent on behalf of Ms Truss to the prime minister’s office when she was serving as foreign secretary in March 2022.

However, it was seemingly ignored.

The redacted email was released to the BBC by the Supreme Court of British Indian Ocean Territory this week after being opposed by the government.

Responding to BBC questions over the contents of the email, the Foreign Office said the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot) “cannot be a backdoor migration route to the UK”.

“Enabling migrants to come to the UK from Biot would only incentivise further irregular migration, and enable criminal gangs to exploit individuals to make dangerous journeys across the sea.”

Dozens of Sri Lankan Tamils have been stranded for more than two years in a makeshift camp on the remote island of Diego Garcia, which hosts a secretive UK-US military base.

The first group landed there in October 2021 after their fishing boat ran into trouble while trying to sail to Canada, according to migrants and officials.

Their subsequent asylum claims were the first to ever be launched on Biot – an area described as being “constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK”, and where court papers say the refugee convention does not apply.

Asylum seekers have described conditions on the island as hellish, but the territory’s unusual legal status has left them in limbo.

Many claim to have links with the former Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka, who were defeated in the civil war that ended in 2009, and say they have faced persecution as a result. Some allege they were victims of torture or sexual assault.

Ms Truss’ email was set to be included as evidence in a court case last month, but a deal was reached beforehand to withdraw decisions to return migrants whose protection claims had been rejected, to Sri Lanka, and to launch a new process.

The email sent to the private secretary of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson five months after the first group’s arrival, states that while Ms Truss “strongly supports the government’s overall posture on migration”, she “feels that the unique circumstances and severity of risks in this situation require us to take extraordinary action and bring the migrants to the UK for processing”.

It states that arrangements were being made to determine whether the return of migrants to Sri Lanka “potentially forcibly” would “be in line with public international law”. But it says Ms Truss believed “a more urgent and direct approach” was required.

The email states that the Biot administration has a “duty of care to the migrants”, and says “there are severe limitations to the mitigation measures which can be implemented on Biot given the lack of facilities”.

It also states that the group had made a “credible threat of mass suicide”.

The BBC has spoken to multiple migrants who say they have attempted suicide because of poor conditions on the island. There have also been hunger strikes, which lawyers say have involved children.

“I didn’t want to live here like a caged animal forever,” one man said earlier this year of his attempted suicide.

Lawyers representing asylum seekers on Diego Garcia say that as of late September, 61 remained on the island. Four were in Rwanda after being relocated there for treatment following suicide attempts.

Four people have had their claims to be sent to a “safe third country” approved, but the BBC understands that no country has yet been identified to relocate them to.

One of the group’s lawyers, Tessa Gregory, noted that 18 months after Ms Truss’s call for the asylum seekers to be relocated to the UK for processing their asylum claims, “our clients remain on the island enduring terrible conditions with no freedom of movement”.

“[T]heir asylum claims [were] unresolved because the process they have been subjected to did not withstand legal challenge. It is imperative that this group, which includes children, victims of torture and sexual assault, be urgently relocated to a safe third country, like the UK, to have their claims for international protection lawfully and fairly processed.”

Ms Truss was unavailable for comment when contacted by the BBC.