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Canadians board Sri Lanka asylum boat
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Canadians board Sri Lanka asylum boat
AFP - 2 hours 31 minutes ago
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Canadians board Sri Lanka asylum boat
VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - – Canada on Friday prepared to screen nearly 500 asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka from an intercepted cargo ship, as Colombo warned that some of those on board had been Tamil Tiger rebels.
After days of tracking by Canadian and US authorities, the Canadian navy and immigration officers on Thursday boarded the MV Sun Sea after it appeared to veer from its expected destination in the Vancouver area.
The frigate HMCS Winnipeg, "attempted to hail the Sun Sea several times and, after establishing communications, the vessel declared that it had refugees on board," Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said.
While the skipper of the Thai-flagged ship said that around 490 refugees were on board, Canadian authorities are uncertain about their identities, Toews said, public broadcaster CBC reported.
Some of those on the ship are "suspected human smugglers and terrorists," Toews said, adding that Canada would prosecute anyone involved in human trafficking, which he called a "despicable crime."
In Colombo, Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said it awaited a Canadian investigation to establish the identity of those aboard the ship, which had earlier been turned away from Australia.
"We have lodged our concerns with the Canadian authorities that these people aboard the Sun Sea could be linked to the LTTE," or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam," a foreign ministry spokesman said in Colombo.
Canada and other Western nations have been critical of Sri Lanka's human rights record, but consider the LTTE -- better known as Tamil Tigers -- to be a terrorist organization.
The Sri Lankan military crushed the Tigers, who had mastered the use of suicide bombers and child soldiers, last year in a bloody finale to a 37-year civil war that provoked concerns abroad over alleged human rights abuses.
Canada has among the world's most welcoming asylum policies and has a politically active Tamil community, which urged their adopted country to grant asylum to the Sun Sea's human cargo.
In a similar incident in October 2009, 76 Tamil refugees arrived on a ship to Canada where they were held but eventually released after none were determined to belong to the Tamil Tigers.
"We are optimistic that the Canadian government will do the same thing again," said Manjula Selvarajah of the Canadian Tamil Congress. "The idea of security, it's very important to us as well. We are Canadian as well."
Selvarajah hinted that the accusations of Tamil Tiger links came from the Sri Lankan government.
Sri Lanka's ambassador to Canada, Chitranganee Wagiswara, told the CBC that the ship was a "human smuggling operation managed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that US authorities had monitored the ship to prepare for any emergency.
Tents were set up to accommodate the Sri Lankans once they dock at a Canadian naval base on Vancouver Island, off mainland British Columbia.
A vacant emergency ward has been set aside in Victoria General Hospital for "triage, screening and diagnostics," hospital spokeswoman Shannon Marshall told AFP.
Healthy migrants will be released back to federal authorities, said Marshall, "while those who require further care will be admitted to an area of the hospital that will be kept separate from the general population".
Local officials said that two jails near the city of Vancouver had prepared space for the expected arrivals.
Sri Lankan officials said the ship headed for Canada after being turned back from Australia, and that several other ships could also be on their way.
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