The refugee camp is a maze of red mud lanes, tightly packed huts with palm-leaf roofs and corrugated-iron sheds under the fierce south Indian sun.

Hundreds of Sri Lankan refugees have crowded into this crammed patch on the tsunami-beaten coast of Tamil Nadu state since the early 1990s, waiting for a chance to go home. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they could?

Refugee repatriation is often hailed by journalists and aid workers as the happy ending to years of tortuous exile that rich-country readers and donors both seem to like to hear about.

But returning "home" is a complex business fraught with dangers, as many Tamil Sri Lankans who were repatriated during the country's lull in violence between 2002 and 2005 have discovered.

As Sri Lanka plunged back into conflict last year, returnees yet again started taking to rickety fishing boats to cross the treacherous slice of water dividing Sri Lanka and India, longing for safety lost.

"Up till December 2005, people were going from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka, and from then on they have been coming the other way," says SC Chandrahasan, founder of the self-help Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR) in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu state capital.

Over 18,000 refugees have reached India since then, according to OfERR. Of them, Chandrahasan says some 7,000 are returnees.

Ramendra, who has lived in the refugee camp since 1991, recalls: "Some people were sent back on (U.N. refugee agency) UNHCR flights, then many came back to India again."

Nowadays he doesn't hold much hope for going back himself. "There's a hunger problem too in Sri Lanka - food is too expensive. Before, a kilo of sugar cost 20 (Sri Lankan) rupees (18 cents). With the fire and fighting, now it's 120 rupees ($1.08). Here at least we don't go hungry."

Some of those who do go home face special dangers. OfERR, which helps run Tamil Nadu's 100-plus government-funded camps, has documented the tragic end met by some repatriates.

Grainy, gruesome pictures show the family of Moorthi Martin, who returned to Sri Lanka under the UNHCR repatriation scheme in 2004 only to end up brutally murdered and strung from the roof in an alleged attack by the Sri Lankan military two years later.

"When people are in a peaceful country and move into a country of turmoil they need to be conditioned to survive," says Chandrahasan. "Returnees are used to the Indian context, where you don't run."

The Martin family had apparently not fled as the military approached their village.

Many returnees eager to go home thought repatriation compensation packages awaited them but didn't receive any funds, Chandrahasan says. Fishermen also heard that it was fine to fish again back on their old Sri Lankan coasts and often took the bait.

Subramaniam, another camp resident, remembers: "Some people had a very difficult life here and decided to go back. Fishermen went back - there, they earn 2000 (Sri Lankan) rupees ($18.06) a day. Here they only earn 25 (62 cents)".

But a belief in the gains of going back lingers on.

UNHCR assisted with repatriations until April 2006, but has "never promoted the return of Sri Lankan refugees from India", says the agency's Elizabeth Tan.

But when refugees got itchy feet and started taking boats back to their island, UNHCR stepped in to organise flights, register refugees and advise budding returnees of the risks. The agency has also monitored the safety of repatriates since 2005, Tan says.

Since celebrating the 1990s as the "decade of repatriation," UNHCR has focused on helping people return to places like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Many repatriates are now caught in the crossfire yet again.

The renewed fighting has brought other fears to Sri Lankan refugees too, as recent reports of Tamil Tiger rebels hiding among the refugees have prompted Indian forces to scour camps and boost sea patrols.

But despite the crackdowns, letdowns and false hopes of return, the camp, with its dusty, potholed streets and makeshift huts, still somehow manages to feel like a home. That's quite unlike its next-door neighbour, a sprawling settlement of purpose-built, NGO-branded concrete and tin-sheet rows built for the local tsunami survivors.

If Sri Lanka's fraught peace process left black clouds hanging over the heads of refugees, the tsunami tragedy brought an unexpected silver lining. As the wave struck, OfERR-organised refugees set out to care for and counsel their Indian neighbours - all in their shared Tamil language and outside the spotlight of the big-bucks NGO operations along the coast.

"The day there is a permanent solution, when no outside help is needed, people will just jump back into the available boats," Chandrahasan says. "After the tsunami, local fishermen told us, 'We will take you and drop you in Sri Lanka. You won't need anyone's help!' You see, the sea is like land to us. If it's normal over there we just walk across."

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.