Sri Lankan woman stranded in Cook Islands for three years over transit visa refusals
A 50-year-old Sri Lankan woman, Ruchira Ranasingha, has been unable to leave the Cook Islands in the South Pacific for three years because New Zealand and Australia keep refusing her transit visas. She wants to return home in time for her son's wedding in November.
Ruchira Ranasingha, a 50-year-old Sri Lankan, has spent three years in the Cook Islands, a small island nation in the South Pacific. She cannot return to Sri Lanka because New Zealand and Australia have repeatedly rejected her transit visa applications. She told the BBC she would travel home even "handcuffed, bound and gagged". Her only son is getting married in November.
How she ended up there
Ranasingha left Sri Lanka in 2018 after closing her small T-shirt factory and struggling to repay loans. She worked in Hong Kong as a caregiver. Her brother says her husband, a drug addict, died about seven years ago.
In December 2022 she arrived in New Zealand on a two-month visitor visa. Before it expired, she applied for asylum with an immigration interpreter's help, citing threats from lenders in Sri Lanka. She received an asylum seeker open work visa valid for a year and worked at a restaurant. Her employer was willing to sponsor an employment visa, but it was declined because asylum seekers generally cannot apply for other visas.
She then approached Immigration & Secretarial Services, which she says told her a new application could be made from overseas. She went to the Cook Islands, but the visa was refused again, and by leaving New Zealand she breached her existing visa. New Zealand authorities said they would grant no future visas.
Every route closed
At the airport she learned she could not board a flight to Sri Lanka without a New Zealand transit visa. Three New Zealand applications and four Australian ones were rejected. Hawaii and Tahiti require biometric data, which can only be provided in person in New Zealand.
Auckland immigration law specialist Alastair McClymont says authorities likely fear she will not leave, since her asylum claim said her life was at risk in Sri Lanka. Immigration New Zealand said it was not satisfied she genuinely intended to transit. Sri Lanka's foreign ministry says it is taking all necessary steps to facilitate her return. Her brother is deeply worried about her mental state.
