The Coast Guard Sunday rescued 10 Sri Lankan refugees who were stranded on a sand dune off the Dhanushkodi coast near here while attempting to escape from camps in India.

As many as 12 refugees, four from the Virudhunagar district and eight from Tiruchirapally, were attempting to return to Thalaimannar in north Sri Lanka illegally, police said.

An agent had agreed to take them back to Sri Lanka in a boat from Thangachimadam near the Rameswaram island, about 500 km south of Chennai, the rescued people reportedly told the police.

They had boarded the boat Saturday night. After several hours of travel in the Palk Strait, they were told that they had reached the Sri Lankan coast.

They were unloaded from the boat on a sand dune in shallow water around 3 a.m. and told to walk to Thalaimannar in the early hours of the morning, when the tide was low.

At dawn, the refugees realised that the dune they were abandoned on was in Indian waters.

Two of the men swam back to Dhanushkodi and informed the Coast Guard about the plight of the others.

The Coast Guard then rescued the stranded people in a hovercraft and handed them over to the police.

On questioning, the refugees told the police that there were agents in Ramanathapuram district who regularly ferried refugees back to northern Sri Lanka from the Thangachimadam coast illegally.