In 2021, 60 Tamils were fleeing Sri Lanka for Canada when their boat sprang a leak. They were taken to Diego Garcia by the British navy. Three years later, they remain there in desperate, dangerous limbo

It was 10 days into the journey when the boat sprang a leak. Dozens of men, women and children were crowded on to a fishing boat, all Tamils fleeing persecution in their home country, Sri Lanka. They had hoped to reach sanctuary in Canada.

Instead, on 3 October 2021, as their vessel began to sink, they were spotted and rescued by British navy ships, then taken to the secretive US-UK military base on the remote island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

For those on board, the rescue brought relief. “When I saw the British flag, I thought to myself: ‘Now we are safe,’” says one. Little did they know that years of purgatory lay ahead.

But for the 60 asylum seekers who are stuck here, 16 of whom are children, that idyll could not be further from their reality.

Initially, the group were told their boat would be repaired in a matter of days and that they could continue on their journey to Canada. “I was told we would be sent to a safe country,” says one passenger. “That was the best day of my life. I arrived only in the clothes I was wearing and had to wear the same ones for a fortnight. I soon realised what was happening to me was the opposite of what I expected.”

Almost three years after their arrival, they are still stuck.