Widespread protests were held across the North-East this weekend as Tamil families of the disappeared, civil society organisations, and human rights defenders rallied to demand an international, independent investigative mechanism into the genocide committed against the Tamil people.

^{NPP officials in Jaffna this week.}

Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader and Member of Parliament Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam delivered a scathing speech in Sri Lanka’s parliament this week, condemning the government for whitewashing the memory of the Black July pogrom and enabling continued land appropriation in the North-East.

Commemorations marking the 42nd anniversary of Black July were held in Jaffna yesterday, as Tamils across the North-East remembered the victims of the state-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom that took place in July 1983.

Earlier on Wednesday, students at the University of Jaffna gathered at the campus and laid flowers before a portrait the read the words “Black July Genocide”.  

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has issued a statement commemorating 42 years since Black July, the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, describing it as “a tragic chapter in Sri Lanka’s history” that left “thousands dead, families shattered, and countless others forced to flee.”