Sri Lankan Defence Secretary, and accused war criminal, Kamal Gunaratne, vowed to “punishing the culprits” behind the Easter Sunday bombing and to strengthen “national security”.

The victims of the Easter Sunday bomb attack in Sri Lanka last year, were paid tribute by families of the disappeared in Vavuniya, on Tuesday.

Tuesday marked one year since the incident that took away the lives of hundreds of civilians in a coordinated unprecedented act of violence.

Sri Lanka’s president boasted on Twitter earlier this week that his regime was ranked 9th in the “Global Response to Infectious Diseases Index” – a ranking system devised by a little known Australian accountancy organisation that has close ties to Sri Lanka’s ruling party.

“Honored to have #LKA ranked 9^th,” tweeted Rajapaksa this week, as the Sri Lankan military led the state’s coronavirus strategy, with accused war criminal Shavendra Silva leading the coronavirus task force.

An initiative to provide free walk-in medical camps for the villagers of Madu in Mannar, was established to assist them with their healthcare needs at a time where the COVID-19 pandemic has made access to check-ups and medicine very difficult. 

The second instalment of these mobile medical camps were set up for villagers on Saturday (18^th April), where around 100 people were able to get free medical check-ups and medicines.

More than a decade after the end of the armed conflict, the Sri Lankan military continues to occupy vast swathes of land reports Reuters, as it spoke to Tamils on the island and abroad who are attempting to reclaim their land.

Reuters spoke to 44-year-old Raj, a Tamil who travelled from Australia to his village of Kurumbasiddy, which since 1990 has been occupied by the Sri Lankan army. Along with 100 other families, the area they were living was declared a High Security Zone and remains under the reigns of the military more than 3 decades later.

The British and American envoys to Sri Lanka met with the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress Rauf Hakeem this week, where he says they expressed “solidarity”.

“Had the pleasure of being spoken to by both HE British High Commissioner @SarahHultonFCO and HE Ambassador Alaina Teplitz, this morning,” tweeted Hakeem yesterday. “Thank you for inquiring into many matters of concern & expression of solidarity.”

<p>The Government of Japan has granted Sri Lanka $1.2 million through international organisations to combat Covid-19.</p> <p>The financial assistance through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was “part of an emergency response to the new coronavirus infection control, aiming to strengthen the capacities of developing countries including Sri Lanka in the field of health and medical care," the Japanese embassy wrote in a press release.</p>

Sri Lankan police officers announced the arrest of a man who allegedly fired a T-56 rifle in Amparai this week.

Officers in Sammanthurai reported that gunshots were fired on Monday evening at approximately 9.30pm.

They subsequently arrested a man who was in possession of a T-56 rifle.

A Tamil fisherman who was attacked and bitten by Sri Lankan sailors last week has spoken out about the assault, stating that the military “behaved like cannibals”.

Though the fishermen initially feared reprisals if they spoke out about the attack, they gave statements after news of the assault reached other Sri Lankan authorities.

The Human Rights Commission Of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) has launched an investigation into the incident in which a young Tamil man from Jaffna among several other youngsters, were brutally assaulted by off-duty police officers and dragged to a police station.

The HRCSL sent a notice on Monday (20^th April) requesting the Jaffna senior superintendent of police, to explain the action taken in response to the incident.