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The question of Rohingya refugees returned to public attention in Sri Lanka after a boat carrying more than 115 people reached the Mullaitivu coast in December 2024, and again when a Rohingya man living in Sri Lanka petitioned the UN Human Rights Council to release those in detention and grant them citizenship or permanent residency.
Against that backdrop, a post began circulating that claimed Cabinet Spokesperson and Health and Mass Media Minister Dr Nalinda Jayatissa had announced, at a cabinet media briefing, that the government was working to grant citizenship to Rohingya migrants. Here is the post that carried the claim.
Social Media Posts
The Minister Made No Such Statement at Any Cabinet Briefing
The Rohingya, who have faced long standing persecution around Myanmar’s Rakhine State, have fled the country in large numbers over the years to seek refuge elsewhere. Several groups have reached Sri Lanka, and the issue resurfaced in December 2024 when a boat carrying over 115 migrants arrived off Mullaitivu. A Rohingya migrant living in Sri Lanka then made a direct appeal to the 63rd session of the UN Human Rights Council to release those held here, asking the government to grant them citizenship or permanent residency (details here).
It was in that backdrop that the post claiming Minister Jayatissa had announced citizenship for Rohingya migrants spread. Had he made such a statement, it would have been reported not only in local media but internationally. No mainstream outlet, local or foreign, carried any such report.
Our review confirmed that the Minister made no statement of that kind at recent cabinet briefings, and that none of the published cabinet decisions record any move to grant citizenship to Rohingya migrants.
What did happen was that at a January 2025 cabinet briefing, answering a journalist’s question, the Minister said the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were jointly handling the Rohingya matter. He described it as an issue that had to be approached with great care, and said the government had to weigh the migrants’ human rights alongside national and regional security before deciding how to intervene.
Minister Jayatissa’s Media Division Rejected the Claim
When we asked the media secretary to Health and Mass Media Minister Dr Nalinda Jayatissa, he too confirmed that the Minister had made no statement about Rohingya migrants or about granting them citizenship.
Claim 2: Posts Attributed to MP Mujibur Rahman Are Also False
After the Rohingya migrant’s appeal at the UN Human Rights Council, several posts began circulating claiming that SJB MP Mujibur Rahman had also spoken on the issue. One quoted him as saying the government had no right to deport Rohingya refugees and should grant them citizenship.
A September 15, 2026, post went further, claiming under the line ‘A warning if Rohingya refugees are deported: Mujibur writes to the President’ that the MP had formally opposed a government decision to deport a group of refugees to Myanmar.
Several users asked us to check whether these were genuine, so we investigated.
No Recent Statement from MP Mujibur Rahman Exists
We searched mainstream news coverage for any recent statement by SJB MP Mujibur Rahman saying the government has no right to deport Rohingya migrants, demanding citizenship for them, or writing to the President about them. No reputable outlet has reported any such recent statement or letter.
What the record does show, as reported here, here and here by mainstream media, is that in January 2025 MP Rahman wrote to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake asking that the Rohingya migrants rescued off Mullaitivu not be deported to Myanmar. Reports say his appeal followed remarks by the Public Security Minister about their possible deportation. After a January 2025 meeting with local UN officials to raise these concerns, he spoke to the media, as reported here.
MP Mujibur Rahman Denied the Posts
When we contacted MP Mujibur Rahman, he dismissed the social media posts as baseless. He said that after the Public Security Minister’s remarks he had asked the government not to send the group rescued off Mullaitivu in 2024 back to unsafe Myanmar until the UN relocated them, but that he had made no statements on the matter since.
In a post on his official Facebook page, the MP also called the posts using his name and image to attribute Rohingya related statements to him wholly false and fabricated, confirming he had said no such thing.
We have also raised the position of the Rohingya migrants currently in Sri Lanka with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will update this article once we receive their response.
Rohingya Arrivals in Sri Lanka: The Background
The Rohingya are first recorded as reaching Sri Lanka on March 3, 2008, when the Navy rescued 55 of them at sea and handed them to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Later arrivals included 170 migrants in two boats in February 2013 and 30 rescued by the Navy on April 30, 2017. All three groups eventually left the country through UNHCR intervention.
On December 18, 2022, Sri Lankan authorities and UNHCR rescued and brought ashore 105 more migrants. Then, on December 19, 2024, a multi-day fishing vessel carrying 116 migrants, including 57 children, reached the Mullivaikkal coast in Mullaitivu. According to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka, the Navy escorted the vessel to Trincomalee before the group was housed at a Mullaitivu air force camp.
On June 20, 2026, the UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka urged the authorities to give UNHCR prompt access to the Mullaitivu group and to release them from detention. Details here, here, here, here and here.
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Conclusion
Our fact-check found that Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Nalinda Jayatissa never stated, at a cabinet media briefing or anywhere else, that the government was working to grant citizenship to Rohingya migrants. His media division confirmed this.
MP Mujibur Rahman likewise made no recent statement of the kind circulating online. He did ask the government in January 2025 not to deport a group of rescued migrants after reports of a possible deportation, but he has issued no statement on the matter since. We therefore mark both claims False.
Title: Fake Claims Targeting Minister Nalinda & MP Mujibur Rahman Linked to Rohingya Refugees
Fact Check By: Sagarika Chathumali
Result: False
