Mother with heart condition fights to bring her twins back to UK

A LONDON mother who needs emergency heart treatment in the UK is battling the Government over its refusal to allow her adopted twins to travel with her from Sri Lanka.

Lisa Keerthichandra and her husband Dash fell in love with Lavinia and Aria at an orphanage in Sri Lanka when the children were six months old and adopted them in 2019.

The couple from Enfield, who moved to Sri Lanka in 2013 and have since divided their time between their two homes, say UK passport officials told them they cannot bring the children back to the UK where their mother needs treatment.

The 44-year-old business owner has been diagnosed with unstable angina, putting her at risk of a sudden heart attack.

Lawyers and visa experts insist the twins, now three, are eligible for British passports. But Mrs Keerthichandra says she was told to leave them in care while she flies home indefinitely. This is despite the children having British adoption certificates and UK passport-carrying parents.

She told the Standard: “It’s crazy that a UK government organisation would advise traumatised children be put back into care. They have never had a single day without me and for me to disappear would just be another huge trauma that they wouldn’t understand.”

Mrs Keerthichandra cannot be treated in Sri Lanka, where the family currently live, due to complications surrounding her existing condition known as Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Doctors agreed it was much safer for her to fly home and be placed under the care of her EDS specialist and cardiologists.

The twins’ birth certificates, adoption certificates and passports were initially registered under the local government system in Sri Lanka. Following their adoption, the couple applied for the twins to have UK tourist visas to meet their grandparents. But it was rejected by UK Immigration and Visas who said the girls were not valid tourists as they had a claim to British nationality.

Eventually, Lisa went through the family courts and the twins were granted full British adoption birth certificates in September.

The following day, Mrs Keerthichandra was admitted to hospital and the family contacted passport advisers to see if the twins were entitled to emergency travel documents. They were told “yes”.

But the couple said their claim was rejected again, despite the twins now having British birth papers. The family are now preparing an appeal via their lawyers in Sri Lanka.