"The space in this camp is very small. And it is very loud day and night. I cannot sleep here. The food is poor. And I have health problems, but I cannot get medical help or go to the hospital here. Another Pakistani man died here before." - A Pakistani detainee who, at the time of contacting the GDP, had been detained in the centre for nine months.

“We do not have a specific court date when we can be convicted or released and we don’t know how much longer they will keep us here. …We have families in our homes that depend on us, but here we cannot earn and provide for them. And we have no idea when we can go from here. … It’s a very tight and overcrowded space and it is very hard to stay here for months having no idea how much longer we have to stay here.

The camp itself is just one room with dorm beds and a small yard. It is overcrowded, and not everyone have a bed here, many people sleep on mattresses in a yard. Most people stay for a long time here. There are people who have been staying here in indefinite detention for 5-8 years waiting for investigation that never finish. There are a lot of detainees from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and China here. But also people from many other countries like Israel, Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia, etc." - A detainee who, at the time of contacting the GDP in September 2025, had been detained in Welisara for 9 months,

"I am a citizen of Kazakhstan. I am detained in a detention center in Sri Lanka, because my visa has expired and I don't have money for a return ticket. And I will be detained here indefinitely until I can purchase a plane ticket out of Sri Lanka and into my homecountry. But obviously being detained, I cannot earn money here to purchase a ticket. There are many people who are detained here for the same or similar reasons as me. Some has been staying in this detention center for years. Sri Lankan goverenment don't deport people who can't leave Sri Lanka themselves, but put all visa and immigration offenders into a detention center and leave them there indefinitely." - Testimony emailed to the Global Detention Project on 29 August 2025