Repatriation, Burial and cremation of Human Remains.
- Only the human remains of Sri Lankan nationals
- Former Sri Lankan citizens who are holding foreign passports
- Foreigners married to Sri Lankan citizens
- Foreigners whose parents are Sri Lankan citizens
- Repatriation of human remains can be done only through Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA)
Prior approval for repatriation of human remains shall be obtained from the Airport Health Officer (APHO) at Bandaranaike International Airport by submitting the following documents. All documents must be produced in English language. If in other languages, a true copy of the English translated document should be produced.
- Proof of identification of the deceased person (cancelled passport)
- Death Certificate issued with the cause of death
- If the cause of death is not clearly mentioned
- Police Report , Coroner’s Certificate or Forensic report should be provided in the case of unnatural deaths due to homicides, suicides, accidental, suspicious deaths, deaths following surgeries, dead body brought to health care facility or in any other suspicious circumstances where the APHO decides to have such a report
- Embalming certificate
- No objection letter for repatriation obtained from the Embassy of Sri Lanka, Abu Dhabi
Please note that once all the required documents are submitted by the airline, the APHO will take steps to grant approval within one working day (24 hours).
Further take a note that no human remains are allowed to repatriate without prior approval.
- The human remains will be released only to the consignee. If the consignee is not appearing, an affidavit from the consignee must be submitted for handing over to a nominated person.
- If the death is due to a homicide, suicide, accident, cause of death is under investigation or any other unnatural mode of death (as per the APHO’s discretion), will be subjected to an inquest before release.
- If subjected to an inquest, the human remains should be transferred to the District General Hospital Negombo and be released to the consignee after the inquest. This may be with or without a postmortem as decided by the Inquirer into Sudden Deaths (Coroner).
- The human remains which do not warrant an inquest will be released to the consignee at the airport.
Human remains with infection risk
If a death occurs due to a communicable disease with increased public health risk, or any unknown disease conditions, Director of Quarantine as the proper authority under the Quarantine and Prevention of Disease Ordinance No.03 of 1897 may restrict the repatriation of the human remains on a case‑by‑case basis. The duration of such restrictions will be decided depending on the nature of the disease and the prevailing epidemiological situation and further the Director of Quarantine has the discretionary authority to refuse the repatriation, if decided that the infection risk to the general population posed by the repatriation is high.