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A Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seeker detained by the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) administration for nearly five years died by apparent suicide on 13 September in Mbabane, Eswatini’s largest city, according to local news reports and relatives of the deceased.
His death comes two years after the BIOT administration granted him international protection, preventing his forcible return to Sri Lanka, during which time he lived in a legal limbo in multiple countries.
Kishanth Peramaiya, 36, was one of 89 Tamil asylum seekers who had fled Sri Lanka and India before being rescued by the Royal Navy in October 2021 when their fishing vessel faltered near the British-held island of Diego Garcia, which lies within BIOT.
Hundreds of additional arrivals followed on later vessels, most of whom agreed to return to Sri Lanka or left by boat to Mauritius or the French island of Réunion. Around 60 remained in BIOT custody, living in a fenced tent camp in Diego Garcia’s tightly controlled UK-US military facility. They faced rat infestations, deteriorating psychological and medical conditions, and the threat of being prosecuted or shot if they violated strict movement restrictions.
Most were approved to enter the UK in November 2024. The following month, the BIOT Supreme Court ruled their detention on the island had been unlawful. But Kishanth was one of three members of the group denied entry to the UK because they had been convicted of crimes or were under criminal investigation during their detention. Another is serving the remainder of a three-year prison sentence in Montserrat for sexual offences against a child; and the third appeared to be serving a sentence on Diego Garcia for an undisclosed crime as of April 2026.
Kishanth’s case, according to analysis by the London-based GSC Solicitors, “underscores the complexities of balancing humanitarian considerations with public safety concerns”. His transfer to Eswatini and subsequent death raise further questions about how the UK government decided to address these complexities, particularly since his suicidality was known to UK authorities for years.
Local media in Eswatini have reported that his transfer to the country was permanent. If confirmed, it would appear to be the first publicly documented instance of an asylum seeker being granted international protection by a British authority before being permanently resettled in a different country.
The closest precedent was a 2022 plan to send asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda for processing and potential resettlement. This faced legal challenges and was scrapped in 2024 before transfers began. Three asylum seekers sent from Diego Garcia to Rwanda in 2023 for medical treatment said they were harassed or threatened there, including by a hospital worker.
The New Humanitarian spoke by phone on 15 September to Kishanth’s relatives in India, which hosts a large, effectively stateless Sri Lankan Tamil population. His mother said he was transferred from Diego Garcia to the Maldives six months ago because of the US-Iran war. A month later, she said, he was brought to Eswatini, where he received two successive three-month visas, the second of which was due to expire on 20 September.
Swaziland News reported in July that an agreement between the UK and Eswatini governments allowed Kishanth to stay in the country permanently.
“At the end of the period of up to three years, the UK will no longer cover any costs of the continued presence of the Relocated Migrant in Eswatini. The Relocated Migrant is expected to be self-sustaining as a member of Eswatini society,” reads an excerpt of the agreement, according to the local outlet.
An Eswatini lawmaker criticised the country’s prime minister for turning the country into a “dumping ground” by admitting a “delinquent” from Sri Lanka.
On 15 September, the Times of Eswatini reported that a Sri Lankan national “was found hanging from the rafters at a guest house” the previous weekend, prompting a police investigation.
The New Humanitarian has approached the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the BIOT administration for clarification on Kishanth’s status in Eswatini and the circumstances surrounding his death.
Toufique Hossain of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which represented Kishanth in legal challenges to the UK and BIOT governments, said he was not authorised to comment.
Kishanth had been “tortured, sexually assaulted and abused” by Sri Lankan military personnel before fleeing to India in 2007. He was one of eight members of the Diego Garcia group to be granted international protection on the basis of individual assessments, some on similar grounds.
But he was barred from entering the UK with the rest of the group because of a series of criminal convictions: sexually assaulting another asylum seeker four times, assaulting and harming a security officer who tried to intervene in his suicide attempt, and arson “in connection with an attempted suicide by self-immolation”.
“Whilst we understand the need to separate him from the community, his right to privacy and to be accommodated in a humane and dignified manner must be upheld.”
In response to his behaviour and unravelling mental state, BIOT authorities kept him separate from the rest of the asylum seeker group. He was confined for around eight months in a laundry room with only supervised access to other areas of the compound and two weeks alone in a police cell with no natural light.
Following a late 2023 monitoring visit, UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, said it was “deeply concerned” by the conditions of his detention, citing his sleeping area’s exposure to noise, shower leaks, and toilet smells.
“Whilst we understand the need to separate him from the community, his right to privacy and to be accommodated in a humane and dignified manner must be upheld,” the monitoring team said in a 2024 report.
Throughout his detention, he attempted suicide numerous times, sometimes in quick succession, prompting medical evacuation to Bahrain in 2024, according to court records.
The New Humanitarian spoke briefly with Kishanth following his return to Diego Garcia from medical treatment in Rwanda in 2023. In broken English, he described receiving “not correct treatment”, “no sleeping”, and being confined to a “military area”.
Another asylum seeker recalled witnessing him “walking alone”, “seeing dreams”, “screaming at night”, and threatening to harm himself with a shard of a broken mirror.
A psychiatrist quoted in 2024 court proceedings said “it is very difficult for him to be so isolated for an indefinite period”, and ending his isolation “would hugely improve his mental health”.
In 2025, a UK court dismissed Kishanth’s legal challenge to being barred from the country, allowing the government to base its decision on public safety concerns.
With return to Sri Lanka ruled out and the UK refusing him admission, his only remaining solution was relocation to a third country.
His mother told The New Humanitarian he sounded depressed when they spoke on 13 September, the same day his body was found. She had asked him to come back to India. Seemingly unaware or disbelieving his stay in Eswatini was permanent, he told his mother he was planning on waiting there for a few days before being sent to a third country.
If you are in crisis, click here to find a helpline near you (via the International Association for Suicide Prevention).
Edited by Andrew Gully.
