The US Embassy in Sri Lanka donated supplies to the Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Sri Lanka at Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo on Tuesday, as part of US global relief efforts to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

“We stand in solidarity with Sri Lanka as both our countries battle this global pandemic,” said Ambassador to Sri Lanka Alaina Teplitz, as she donated coveralls, gloves, boot covers, and cleaning supplies to the former military officer who heads the CAA.

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced that all inbound flights to the island will be shut down for two weeks and that the security forces were engaged in a “continuous search” for persons that arrived from high risk countries as part of efforts to contain the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

A patient at Batticaloa Teaching Hospital has tested positive for coronavirus, the first case in the NORth-East, as the island-wide total climbed to 43 earlier today.

Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health said that almost 200 other people are currently under observation at hospitals and treatment centres.

Meanwhile, Shavendra Silva, the head of the Sri Lankan army who is subject to US travel sanctions, acknowledged that 1,719 people had been detained in quarantine centres run by the military to date. 

The Sri Lankan military admitted it was using intelligence officers to track down foreign arrivals who entered the island and may have evaded the government’s quarantine process, set up in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Sri Lanka’s deference secretary Kamal Gunaratne, said that there were more than 170 people who had returned from Italy and Korea, that were missed by the screening process.

The head of the Sri Lankan army, who is currently subject to US travel sanctions due to his role in overseeing war crimes, is to lead Colombo’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak on the island.

Shavendra Silva has been appointed the head of Sri Lanka’s National Operation Center for Prevention of COVID- 19 Outbreak, which has reportedly “been set up on the directive of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa”.

SriLankan Airlines have confirmed that one of their pilots has tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, just days after he reportedly attended an annual cricket match between two of Colombo’s elite schools.

In a statement, the cash-stricken airline said that the pilot “operated his last lay-over flight to Singapore on February 28, 2020 and thereafter all the flights he operated have been turnaround flights”.

The Chairman of the National Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya, confirmed that a decision to postpone the general election was still not made despite the COVID-19 coronavirus threat in Sri Lanka.  

Mr. Deshapriya stated this yesterday (March 16), following a meeting between the health officials and officials of the Election Commission (EC).

US based advocacy group, People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka (PEARL), released its third instalment of its Sinhalisation of the North-East series, focusing on the impact of state-sponsored Sinhalisation and militarisation of Seruwila-Verugal.

Data gathered by PEARL researchers in the series examines how Sinhalisation and militarisation is used to deliberately shift the demographics of Tamil and Muslim areas.

The Sri Lankan government decision to set up a coronavirus quarantine centre in Batticaloa and Kandakadu, came after protests earlier this month form Sinhala locals in Hendala, admitted Sri Lanka’s health minister.

Initially, the government had chosen the Leprosy Hospital at Hendala, which the Director-General of Health Services described as “ideal”.

^{File photograph: Malcolm Ranjith and Mahinda Rajapaksa}

The head of Sri Lanka’s Roman Catholic Church called on the United Nations to immediately conduct a probe into the COVID-19 coronavirus, claiming that it is a man-made illness and those responsible should be prosecuted for “genocide”.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith claimed that the coronavirus is “the work of a rich and powerful nation”, though declined to name any particular countries.