Angelo Rasanayagam, retired UN diplomat who worked for nearly three decades with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), passed away in Colombo, on Wednesday, December 9. He was 84 years old, and had been living in Colombo for the last four years. While at UNHCR, Angelo covered practically every refugee hot spot in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean countries that erupted between 1971 and 1996, including the Vietnamese Boat People crisis when he was stationed in Hong Kong, and the Afghan imbroglio from Peshawar, Pakistan.
An alumnus of St. Joseph’s College, Colombo, and the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, where he completed English Honours in 1959, Angelo taught at St. Benedict’s College for a few years before leaving for Geneva, Switzerland, in 1964. He pursued graduate studies in Political Science, Economics and International Affairs at the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, completing his Masters, but