Tamil families of the disappeared have spoken about the pain they continue to feel, including suicide attempts, as they continue to search for their abducted loved ones.

Speaking to Reuters, government employee Valantina Daniel said her 66-year-old injured mother was forcibly disappeared in 2009.

Reuters also spoke to Arumuga Lakshmi, whose daughter Ranjinithervy went missing in 2004, followed three years later by her son Sivakumar.

See extracts from the Reuters piece below:

The head of Sri Lanka’s Office of Missing Persons (OMP) told Reuters that a genocide of Tamils did not take place and instead claimed the military had “rescued 60,000 civilians” during a 2009 offensive that was littered with massacres.

Mahesh Katundala, chairman of the much criticised OMP claimed “there was no evidence” that the many thousands of Tamils who had surrendered to the Sri Lankan military in 2009 had been abducted by the security forces.

The leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Rauf Hakeem, has spoken out against any international accountability mechanism for mass atrocities and instead advocated for a wholly domestic Sri Lankan process.

Responding to a tweet by disgraced former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, congratulating Xi Jinping for his re-election as the CPC’s General Secretary, China’s embassy in Sri Lanka thanked the accused war criminal and noted their ambition to enhance the relationship between the CPC and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

Sri Lanka’s economic crisis has seen more people turn to sex work, said a leading doctor on the island, which in turn has led to a growing number of sexually transmitted diseases being detected.

According to Sri Lanka’s National STD/AIDS Control Programme, 4,556 HIV patients were recorded in the first quarter of 2022, up 11.8 percent from 4,073 in 2021 first quarter.

In the second quarter of 2022, 4,686 HIV patients have been identified, up 13.2 percent from 4,142 in 2021.

Horror, much like most other genres, elicits laughter when it fails. Failed comedy, on the other hand, leaves the viewer horrified. This was my experience of watching Anudeep KV’s Sivakarthikeyan starrer ‘Prince.’ 

Having seen the teaser for PS Mithran’s latest release ‘Sardar’, I had braced myself  for a repeat viewing of ‘Cobra’ released earlier this Summer. The film’s star Karthi appears in multiple disguises and costumes - which was also Cobra’s primary marketing point - and I was overcome with flashbacks to rolling my eyes and sighing with the Vikram starrer. Thankfully, ‘Sardar’ is a better feature in almost every aspect. 

In a bid to increase government revenues, Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry unveiled a 150% increase on annual taxes for casinos, from Rs 200 million to Rs 500 million, as well as the introduction of an entrance for locals of 200 US dollars.

More than 13 years after the Sri Lankan military massacred tens of thousands of Tamils in Mullaitivu, human remains have been discovered in the district earlier this month.

The Mullaitivu District Judge has ordered Forensic Medical Officers to conduct an investigation on the remains, which were discovered in a private site in Ananthapuram, Puthukudiyiruppu.

The remains have been sent to Mullaitivu Hospital for investigation.

The Colombo High Court granted bail to four persons who were detained under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) over an alleged assassination attempt on Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran last week.

The four suspects had been detained since February 2017.

Senior Counsel K.S. Ratnavale with Ranitha Gnanaraja, Suranga Bandara and Suwathikka Ravichandran appeared on behalf of the suspects, who are all residents of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.