They could no longer live in the only home they knew and fled, and they have no idea where or when they might feel at home again.

It is marked by endless paperwork, tough living conditions in an unfamiliar place, and invariably, a harrowing wait.

“This long wait has been agonising for us,” said Riffat Fareedun, 39, a refugee from Karachi living in Sri Lanka’s coastal city of Negombo, about 40 km north of Colombo.Įxcept for some distance from threat and persecution, refugee life is far from easy. The Fareeduns’ family of four has been using the space, which also has a small TV on the wall, a sewing machine, and a side table crowded with water bottles, as their living room-cum-study-cum-bedroom for nearly a decade.įrom the time they left Pakistan and sought refuge in Sri Lanka in 2012 - their daughters were one and three then - fleeing persecution after the couple’s fiercely opposed inter-caste marriage, the family has endured in this cramped space, amid uncertainty over their resettlement. The two large beds, with no gap in between, occupy almost the entire area of the room, barely 12 X 8 feet.

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