AreaRead the video transcript expand here
Finally out of Sri Lanka - this dream has burst for Neenu Mekala.
Instead of starting a new life in Australia with her husband and their two sons, the young mother was brought back to her home country against her will.
She is alone with her children.
Her husband is in custody.
Neenu Mekala, housewife:
»We wanted to leave because of the economic crisis in the country.
The problems here just got worse.
The children lack education.
In another place we could have given the children a good education.
We would have gotten a good job and had more money.
That's why we decided that the whole family should leave the country.«
At the end of May, under the cover of night, the family boarded a boat that was barely ten meters long – together with 37 other passengers, says Neenu Mekala.
According to their own information, the family paid the equivalent of 1,350 US dollars for the approximately 5,000-kilometer crossing to Australia.
The passengers waited for days in the open air on the completely overcrowded boat.
Neenu Mekala, housewife:
»We only had seawater for washing and for the toilet.
We couldn't take fresh water because we needed it to drink.
We were hungry like never before.
Not even in our childhood did we suffer so much from hunger.
And we couldn't sleep because the boat was rocking so hard."
Neenu Mekala wanted to abandon the trip, but it was too late.
Leaving Sri Lanka by sea without a permit is illegal.
Still, more and more people are taking the risk of jail time and trying to escape.
The island state is in a serious economic, social and humanitarian crisis.
Many of the approximately 22 million inhabitants can no longer afford fuel, medicine and food.
The inflation rate is currently more than 60 percent.
Sri Lanka can no longer provide itself with basic foodstuffs and has to import expensive rice, for example.
But in the current global food crisis, in which food prices are rising worldwide, the country no longer has the money for this either.
Sri Lanka is bankrupt.
The most important economic sector, tourism, collapsed due to the corona pandemic.
But the catastrophic situation in the country is mainly due to political mismanagement.
In early July, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest shortages and mismanagement.
The mass protests forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to first flee the country and then resign from office.
Pictures of demonstrators storming the magnificent presidential palace went around the world.
A new leadership is now in office.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was appointed president on July 21, called on the population to unite when he took office, but at the same time took a heavy hand against critics.
He declared a state of emergency to nip protests in the bud and jailed several activists.
Since then, the large crowds have stopped taking to the streets in the capital Colombo, but many people are still angry.
Sunil Senavy, protester:
»We have the right to freedom of expression and the right to fight corruption.
A government does not have to give us these rights.
They are fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution.
All those democratic rights have now been suppressed.”
People's hope that the situation in the country will improve after the change of government is already fading.
Fuel remains rationed, the state of emergency has been extended until the end of August and an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on an aid package has been delayed.
More and more people just want to get away and are applying for passports to leave the country.
But processing takes months and the fees are high.
Off the coast, the Sri Lankan Navy is trying to prevent escape and uncover human smuggling.
Almost a thousand people have already been arrested this year for trying to leave the island.
The Navy is working closely with the Australian authorities.
According to media reports, they are said to have sponsored thousands of GPS trackers to help locate fishing boats at any time.
The Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense regularly publishes reports and videos on the successful repatriation of people trying to reach Australia.
Neenu Mekala's boat evaded patrols off the Sri Lankan coast and entered Australian waters.
There it was discovered by the Coast Guard - after almost two weeks on the open sea.
The inmates were interrogated and eventually flown back to Sri Lanka.
Neenu Mekala, housewife:
»After we were brought back, four people, including my husband, were taken into custody.
Actually he feeds us, now he is in prison, without him we have no income.
We have to pay lawyers, the children have to go to school.
At a time when the economy is doing so badly here, we have fallen into an even bigger hole.«
Neenu Mekala's husband is accused of helping organize people smuggling, she says.
He is awaiting trial in prison.
His wife and two children are confident that Sri Lanka will find a way out of the crisis.
According to Neenu Mekala, the family cannot afford another attempt to escape.
They would have spent all their savings on their last one.
