The asylum seeker who saw no way out of Australia’s ‘cobweb of cruelty’

Australia was Mano Yogalingam’s place in the world, but he could never call it home.

A Christian Tamil from Sri Lanka’s west coast, he arrived by boat in Australia in 2013 as a 12-year-old boy with his parents and four siblings, having fled alleged military persecution in the postwar upheaval of his home country.

After more than a year in detention, he was granted a temporary visa. He went to school in Melbourne, he made friends, he built a life and a place in his community. But he was never allowed to feel settled and at home.

On Tuesday evening, Yogalingam set himself alight. He died in hospital the next day, suffering from catastrophic burns to more than 80% of his body.

Friends said Mano, 23 years old and “with his whole life in front of him”, was struggling, his mental health declining and then collapsing under the wearing strain of visa uncertainty.