Sri Lankan woman stranded in Cook Islands for three years over transit visa

Ruchira Ranasingha, a 50-year-old woman from Sri Lanka, has been stranded in the Cook Islands for three years because New Zealand and Australia will not issue her a transit visa to fly home.

Ranasingha left Sri Lanka in 2018 after closing her small T-shirt factory amid financial losses. She worked as a caregiver in Hong Kong before travelling to New Zealand in December 2022 on a two-month visit visa. While there, she applied for asylum, saying she faced threats from lenders in Sri Lanka. She was granted an asylum seeker work visa and found restaurant work, but an employer-sponsored employment visa was declined because asylum seekers generally cannot apply for other visas while their claims are being processed.

An immigration adviser then recommended that she leave New Zealand temporarily and apply for a work visa from overseas. She went to the Cook Islands, but the application was rejected. Because she had left New Zealand, she breached the terms of her existing visa, and New Zealand said it would not grant her any further visas.

She tried to fly to Sri Lanka on an Air New Zealand ticket but was stopped at the airport because she lacked a New Zealand transit visa. Three applications for a New Zealand transit visa were rejected, as were four applications for an Australian transit visa. Routes via Tahiti and Hawaii are not feasible because both require biometric information to be provided in person in New Zealand.

New Zealand Immigration said all her transit applications were declined because officials were not satisfied she genuinely intended to transit through the country. Australia's interior ministry declined to comment on the case. New Zealand's immigration minister's office said offering to travel handcuffed would not prevent someone from making an asylum claim.

The BBC has seen emails showing the adviser's manager, Sylviane Gallant, promising to start the process after Ranasingha left. Gallant later acknowledged the situation was her fault and said she could do nothing more. The BBC contacted Gallant but received no response. Auckland immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont described the advice as terrible and said it could not have come from a genuine lawyer. Ranasingha says she paid thousands of New Zealand dollars in fees.

Ranasingha says her son is marrying in November and her mother has been repeatedly hospitalised from worry. She is staying free in hotel staff accommodation and has received food, clothing and a sewing machine from locals, but says the stress is harming her health. Sri Lanka's foreign ministry said it is working with its high commission in Wellington and New Zealand authorities to facilitate her return.

Source: BBC World.