World · East Asia & Pacific · 3 hrs ago
Sri Lankan woman stranded in Cook Islands for three years over transit visas
Ruchira Ranasingha has been stranded in the Cook Islands for three years and wants to return to Sri Lanka.
She left Sri Lanka in 2018 for work and later travelled to New Zealand, where she sought asylum, saying she feared threats from lenders.
After leaving New Zealand to apply for a work visa, her application was rejected, and her departure breached the conditions of her existing visa.
New Zealand has since refused to give her a transit visa, and Australia has also refused one, leaving her without a feasible route home.
Other international flights from the Cook Islands go to Tahiti and Hawaii, but those visa processes require her to provide biometric information in New Zealand.
She says she wants to attend her son's wedding and is worried about her mother, whose health has suffered.
The account does not say whether she has secured a way to leave.
Ruchira Ranasingha, a 50-year-old Sri Lankan woman, has been stranded in the Cook Islands for three years and says she wants to return home.
New Zealand and Australia have refused to issue her transit visas to fly to Sri Lanka.
Ranasingha says she left New Zealand after an adviser recommended applying for a work visa from overseas, but the application was rejected.
Leaving New Zealand also breached the terms of her asylum-linked visa, and New Zealand said it would not grant her future visas.
She says she wants to attend her son’s wedding in November and is worried about her mother’s health.
- Who
- Ruchira Ranasingha, a 50-year-old Sri Lankan woman.
- What
- She has been stranded in the Cook Islands and says she cannot get a transit visa to fly home to Sri Lanka.
- When
- She has been stranded for three years, according to the article published on 31 October 2026.
- Where
- The Cook Islands. She wants to return to Sri Lanka.
- Why
- New Zealand and Australia have refused to issue transit visas, and her visa options for other destinations require her to provide biometric information in New Zealand.
Ruchira Ranasingha
New Zealand and Australian authorities
Returning home
Ruchira Ranasingha
Ranasingha says she is desperate to go home to Sri Lanka.
New Zealand and Australian authorities
The authorities have refused to issue her transit visas.
Ranasingha left Sri Lanka after closing her T-shirt factory because of a loss of business.
She went to New Zealand on a two-month visit visa.
She says she followed an immigration adviser's recommendation to leave the country and apply for a work visa from overseas.
Her work visa application was rejected, and she says leaving New Zealand breached the terms of her asylum-linked visa.
- Age
- 50
- Time stranded
- Three years
- Current location
- Cook Islands
- Home country
- Sri Lanka
- New Zealand visit
- December 2022, on a two-month visa
- Transit visa refusals
- New Zealand and Australia
1 source
What people are saying
I will do anything they ask of me - I just want to go home.
My son - my only child - is getting married in November and I really want to be there for his wedding. My mother is so worried about what has happened to me that she is constantly in and out of hospital.