Asylum seeker dies in Melbourne a day after self-immolation

The self-immolation of a 23-year-old asylum seeker will pressure Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to resolve the visa status of more than 8000 people whose futures have been uncertain since they arrived by boat more than a decade ago.

Mano Yogalingam, a father-of-one and factory worker who was 11 when he left Sri Lanka with his family, spent his final weeks camped outside the Home Affairs offices in Melbourne while protesting against Australian immigration policy. He died in hospital on Wednesday after lighting himself on fire at a skate park in Melbourne’s south-east on Tuesday night.

Protesters outside the Department of Home Affairs Office in Melbourne’s Docklands on Thursday display portraits of a 23-year-old asylum seeker who died in Melbourne on Wednesday after setting himself on fire.Credit: Eddie Jim

The Tamil Refugee Council said Yogalingam’s shocking death was a consequence of “the psychological torment inflicted by the Australian government’s cruel and inhumane policies” and that it feared more deaths could follow in a community that has grown increasingly desperate.

“At just 23 years, Mano had his whole life ahead of him. His blood is on the hands of the Labor Party. Twelve years is too long to wait for an answer,” it said in a statement.

Mourners said Yogalingam, who spent more than a decade on a bridging visa, had been active in the encampment that has spent 46 days urging Labor to give permanent visas to about 8500 people who have been stuck in limbo since arriving in Australia by boat.

On Thursday, a crowd gathered around two framed photos of the beaming 23-year-old propped on a table alongside bunches of flowers, burning candles and a large pile of petals. “There’s a lot of refugees here who are devastated,” said Aran Mylvaganam, a spokesman for the Tamil Refugee Council who helped organise the event.

Protesters outside the Department of Home Affairs Office in Melbourne on Thursday.Credit: Justin McManus

“We don’t want people to die in this manner. They are facing a hopeless situation.”

Mylvaganam said Yogalingam had been staying up through the night to protect those sleeping in tents at the encampment. Myrlvaganam said the man’s mother, who was also sleeping there, had told him to rest on Sunday night.

“He said, ‘no, I’m going to look after everyone here. I’ll make sure everyone is safe and our things are safe and once you all wake up I’ll go to sleep’,” he said. “It’s really heartbreaking to lose such a good, community-minded person who cared about everyone’s safety.”

Rathy Barthlote, another spokesperson for the council, said Yogalingam was a Christian who had fled Sri Lanka with his parents and four siblings in 2012, due to threats from the military.

Tamil Refugee Council spokesperson Rathy Barthlote.Credit: Eddie Jim

“The psychological torment inflicted by the Australian government’s cruel and inhumane policies, compounded by personal challenges, drove him to a point where he believed he had nothing left to live for,” she said.

“We mourn the loss of another young man who, like so many other young Tamils on bridging visas, woke up every day wondering if it would be the day he would be forced to return to the persecution he fled.

“His mental health deteriorated under the strain of visa uncertainty, leading to this heartbreaking outcome. We have now lost two lives in a single month, and we fear more will follow.”

Burke did not comment on Thursday and his office deferred questions to the department.

A spokesperson from the Department of Home Affairs said its “condolences are with family members and other individuals impacted at this difficult time ... For privacy reasons, the department cannot comment on individual cases”.

Flawed policy created a ‘cobweb of cruelty’: advocates

The protest encampment is demanding Burke resolve 12 years of uncertainty and give people in limbo a pathway to permanency in Australia.

At the centre of the issue is the legacy of an Abbott government policy from 2014 that restrospectively meant people who arrived by boat between August 2012 and July 2013 – before offshore processing – would not gain permanent residency in Australia.

The policy created a “fast-track” process for assessing refugee status, and those who were found to be refugees could only get temporary protection. About 30,000 people were affected.

Labor’s policy platform for the last election called for the fast-track system to be abolished. When Labor came into government, it gave roughly 20,000 people with refugee status permanent visas for the first time.

But for about 8500 people who never had an interview, whose refugee status was denied, or who have been stuck in appeals processes, there has been no resolution.

“The whole process end-to-end was flawed. There are people who arrived from the same family, at the same time, and one was recognised as a refugee while another was not,” said Jana Favero, the head of systemic change at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

“People are understandably demanding permanency because they’re being punished by a flawed process that is arbitrary and stacked against them from the beginning. It created a cobweb of cruelty.”

Yogalingam was one of those 8500 people; Barthlote is another. She has been on temporary bridging visas for 12 years. While her youngest daughter, who was born in Australia, has citizenship, her eldest, who is 15, does not. “From kindergarten to high school, her whole life has been here. This is the only country for her,” Barthlote said.

She worries her eldest daughter, who wants to be a forensic scientist, won’t receive a Commonwealth-supported place at university. Barthlote, who works in aged care, also wants to upskill and become a nurse but cannot afford the international student fees.

She said the hardest thing about her visa conditions was not being able to leave Australia to see her mother, who had fled to India. “I haven’t seen my mum for 18 years. I miss her,” she said through tears on Thursday.

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