(ANSA) - BRISBANE, JUN 15 - After two years of pressure and a petition that has collected half a million signatures, the Australian government has surrendered and announced the release of a family of Tamil refugees, detained since 2019 in the Christmas Island migrant center.
A week ago the youngest daughter became ill and was taken with her mother to a hospital in Perth. Immigration Minister Alex Hawke has finally authorized the other members of the Murugappan family, the father and eldest daughter, to move to the city.
For years, the inhabitants of the rural town of Biloela, in Queensland, have been waging a battle for the return of their families to the place where they lived when they fled Sri Lanka and where the girls were born. Australia has a very hard line towards immigration.
Anyone arriving by boat, as happened to the Murugappans in 2012 and 2013, has no right to stay in the country permanently or to obtain refugee status. (HANDLE).
