Sri Lankan fishing boat carrying Tamil refugees bound for Australia or New Zealand still missing

A Sri Lankan fishing trawler carrying 248 Tamil refugees trying to get to Australia or New Zealand disappeared in 2019 and its fate is still unknown, according to information revealed by New Zealand’s immigration minister Michael Wood. Wood, who recently introduced legislation extending the time people in mass arrivals can be held in detention from four to potentially 28 days, released a list of all recorded attempts to reach New Zealand and Australia, which included a 2019 Tamil journey from Kerala as an attempt to get to New Zealand or Australia that “disappeared.”