Desperate Canada-bound migrants abandoned to fate on sinking ship after crew fled
Human-smuggling operation aimed to bring hundreds of people to B.C. coast
The smugglers promised that a cruise liner would take them to Canada in comfort. But the MV Lady 3 did not meet such lofty expectations.
Rusting and decrepit, the Myanmar-flagged fishing vessel was barely seaworthy, with no sleeping quarters and just two toilets for the 303 largely Tamil men, women and children packed on board. The food was scant — thin porridge or rice, infested with bugs. And the drinking water was the same orange colour as the flaking hull.
In 30 days at sea last fall, the ship managed to cover only 3,500 kilometres — about a fifth of the distance to British Columbia's coast from Myanmar.
The engine broke down frequently. And when the pumps in the hold could no longer keep up with the water streaming through the growing cracks and holes, the crew called in another boat and fled in the night.
"They left us in the middle of the ocean. They just left us and ran away," said Karunatharan Mathushan, one of the would-be asylum seekers. "Everyone was scared, many people cried, many people screamed and shouted."
The hundreds left behind on the Lady 3 were forced to save themselves. Some passengers went down into the belly to bail, while others stood on deck, lighting their shirts on fire to catch the attention of passing ships.
They left us in the middle of the ocean. They just left us and ran away.- Passenger aboard the MV Lady 3
Hours later, on Nov. 10, a Japanese freighter ship pulled alongside and took everyone safely aboard. The Tamil migrants were then transferred to a Vietnamese Coast Guard vessel and sent to refugee camps in and around the coastal city of Vuñg Tàu, in southern Vietnam.
In the ensuing months, more than half of the passengers have elected to return or been deported to Sri Lanka. One 37-year old Tamil man, a father of four, died by suicide at a camp. The remaining migrants continue to hold out hope of finding a new home in Canada or elsewhere.
Failed operation cashed in on desperation
In interviews conducted in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, CBC News has pieced together the story of the Lady 3 and its human cargo — a failed smuggling operation that cashed in on the desperation of dozens of families seeking to flee political repression and economic turmoil.
"They said you can go to Canada. Once you get there, you can get citizenship within a year and you can stay there," Mathushan said.
The 22-year-old said he left Sri Lanka because of harassment by the police and military, but he has since returned to his home in Jaffna. "I figured I would find a job and live."
Like many others aboard, Mathushan said he first heard of the planned voyage last summer — in his case from a friend in Europe. He contacted the smugglers on WhatsApp and arranged to make a $4,000 Cdn payment prior to departure.
In early September, he flew to Malaysia and then on to Myanmar, entering the country on a tourist visa he had obtained online. Mathushan then spent a month living in a hotel near Yangon, along with dozens of other migrants. A smuggler collected their passports and proof of vaccination.
On the night of Oct. 10, 2022, they were taken to the harbour on a bus and boarded a small boat that took them to the Lady 3, which was anchored off the coast. Once underway, the smugglers informed them that the cruise ship was a fiction. The passengers were unhappy, but there was little they could do about it, Mathushan said.
"Some people said, 'We've already gotten on. They are not going to take us back to shore. We've already spent all this money,'" he recalled.
A selling point for many of the migrants were the smugglers' claims of past success. They said they were with the same organization behind the voyages of the MV Sun Sea and Ocean Lady — two vessels that brought more than 550 Tamil asylum seekers to the shores of Vancouver Island in 2009 and 2010.
"They said they'd done it before," said John Selvarasa, who spoke to CBC News from one of the camps in Vietnam. "There were no issues, so this would definitely be fine. They said it would take 45 days.... And once we reached the Canadian border, they'd seize us and take us to a camp.
"We thought we don't have to fear for our lives anymore in Canada, that was the most important thing. In Sri Lanka it's not like that," said Selvarasa, 28, a construction worker from Vavuniya.
Some people, like Sasikala (a pseudonym), a 43-year-old mother from Negombo who asked that her real name not be used due to fear of repercussions, have family in Canada.
"My own elder and younger brother are there," she said from Vietnam. "We didn't tell them that we were coming because they would have stopped us, because it's dangerous coming by the sea route."
She and her husband scraped together $16,000 Cdn to cover the cost of the trip for themselves and their eight-year-old twins, selling off jewelry and arranging loans from friends.
Sasikala said she was determined to find a new home abroad, but after months in the camps, she has now decided to return to Sri Lanka with her family. "Only my children's future is important to me now," she said.
Human smuggling as globalized as trade
Anna Triandafyllidou, the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University, said Canadians shouldn't be surprised at the lengths to which people are willing to go to reach this country's shores.
"I think this testifies to the attractiveness of Canada," she said. "People know it's not just a place where they can find the future for themselves and their children. It's also a safe country. It's a democratic country. It's a place where human rights are respected."
Triandafyllidou said the Lady 3's voyage should serve as a reminder that people-smuggling operations are now as globalized as commercial trade — covering vast distances if the demand exists and the price is right.
"The truth is we cannot manage migration 100 per cent," she said. "We can try to manage it better. But we should also be honest that, you know, the world is very dynamic."
CBC News asked Sean Fraser, the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, if the federal government had been tracking the Lady 3's progress in the fall of 2022. His department indicated that it wasn't even aware the ship was bound for Canada until last week — when CBC News passed on international media reports and comments from Sri Lankan officials.
"Canada has a whole-of-government strategy and co-operates closely with international partners to prevent and disrupt migrant smuggling attempts destined for Canada by land, air or sea," a department spokesperson wrote in a statement. "The Government of Canada will continue to work with domestic law enforcement agencies and international partners to combat international criminal organizations that seek to profit from the desperation and vulnerability of others."
'We can never forget the life we had on that boat'
Those aboard the MV Sun Sea and Ocean Lady were hardly greeted with open arms when they arrived in Canada in 2009 and 2010. Passengers were brought to the Royal Canadian Navy base in Esquimalt, B.C., fingerprinted, photographed and held for background checks.
The Conservative government at the time expressed concerns that some asylum seekers might have had ties to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a military organization outlawed in Canada as a terrorist group since 2006.
But in the end, two-thirds of the people aboard those two vessels — 378 of the 578 migrants —were accepted by Canada as refugees.
Nathan Tharmalingam, who arrived aboard the Sun Sea with his wife and children, then aged nine to 12, now lives in Oshawa, Ont.
Like the passengers aboard the Lady 3, they endured dangerous seas and cramped conditions for weeks, with little to eat or drink.
"It's been over 12 years, but we can never forget the life we had on that boat," he said. "You could barely sit down. When you slept, you slept side by side in lines. We struggled.... We were scared."
Tharmalingam said he is saddened, but not surprised, that other Tamils still want to make the crossing to Canada.
"They tell us now that the country back home is doing well, nothing to worry about, but when you think about the fact that they had to leave, it's hard," he said. "It goes to show that the situation that we lived in still hasn't changed."
Tharmalingam, who after years of working in restaurant kitchens plans to soon open his own bar and grill with his eldest son, said he is grateful that he and his family were allowed to stay.
"When we arrived in Canada, we came as refugees," he said. "We've been given everything.
"Even in my homeland, I didn't experience happiness like I do now."
Jonathon Gatehouse can be contacted via email at jonathon.gatehouse@cbc.ca, or reached via the CBC's digitally encrypted Securedrop system at https://www.cbc.ca/securedrop/
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