The Sri Lankan navy has detained 38 people, including several children, off the coast of Amparai this week, claiming that they were attempting to flee the island. 

According to the Navy media unit, the detainees comprise 26 men, 5 women, and 7 children. The migrants are residents of the Jaffna, Vavuniya, Valachchenai, Chilaw, Kalpitiya, Udappuwa, Ja-Ela and Negombo regions. 

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister admitted his cash-strapped government will look to Moscow for oil, as an economic crisis in the country has left the island facing a dire fuel shortage.

Following the release of a new documentary on Tamil politician and human rights activist Ananthy Sasitharan on Al Jazeera Witness last week, she spoke and on how only an international mechanism can deliver justice for enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka and detailed the struggle that she has been through in her journey so far.

Sri Lanka’s new Commander of the Army said that the military is prepared for an “agricultural revolution” as he met with senior Sinhala Buddhist monks who called for troops to be more “involved in the cultivation process” as militarisation continues on the island.

During a visit to Kandy Lieutenant General Vikum Liyanage met with the Maha Sangha, where according to an official army website, he made several offerings to the monks.

As the world's LGBTQ+ communities commemorate and celebrate Pride month, Jaffna Pride's annual Rainbow Pride Walk took place last weekend. 

Local Tamils and politicians blocked an attempt by Sinhala Buddhist monks and the Sri Lankan army to install a Buddha statue on a native Tamil temple site. 

Sinhala Buddhist monks and the Sri Lankan army had planned a Buddhist dedication ceremony to consecrate a Buddha statue at the site of a native Tamil temple despite an order by Mullaitivu Magistrate's Court decreeing that no changes could be made to the site.

Three Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) members have been arrested today as they protested against a landgrab of a native Tamil temple in Kurunthurmalai, Mullaitivu.

A dedication ceremony for a new Buddha statue is set to take place tomorrow with the assistance of the Sri Lankan army in Kurunthurmalai, Mullaitivu, in a further attempt to seize the site of an ancient Tamil temple.

The ceremony, where a Buddha statue carved in Kabok stone be consecrated, is expected to attract a large number of Sinhalese from the South, including senior Sri Lankan army officers, police officers and Buddhist monks.

Father Chandra Fernando, an outspoken Catholic priest and human rights activist, was gunned down in 1988 by suspected paramilitaries working with Indian military intelligence.

Before he was assassinated, he spoke to Jon Lee Anderson and Scott Anderson on the massacres and crimes taking place in the Tamil homeland, the lack of support from the Catholic Church and his view of the armed Tamil resistance.

The 34^th anniversary of the assassination of Father Chandra Fernando was marked in Batticaloa this week, with tributes being paid to priest that championed human rights.

Fernando was born in Batticaloa in 1941, studying there and serving the local community through his religious and human rights work. He would become the chairman of the Batticaloa Citizens Committee, an organisation that carefully documented human rights violations committed across the province.