The University of Jaffna campus was closed this morning, with students refused entry after they expressed support for protests as Sri Lanka marked its Independence Day.

As students arrived at the campus this morning, they found the gates were shut and they were not allowed to enter the campus.

Tamil families of the disappeared in Trincomalee raised black flags this morning, as they continued their protest demanding international investigations into the whereabouts of their forcibly disappeared loved ones on Sri Lanka’s Independence Day.

A rally was held through Batticaloa this morning, as hundreds of Tamil families marched and demanded an international mechanism to hold those responsible for enforced disappearances and find their missing loved ones.

Tamil families of the disappeared marked Sri Lanka’s Independence Day by holding a rally in the streets of Kilinochchi this morning, as Tamils across the North-East protested today.

Russia is to offer training facilities to Sri Lanka's military despite the long standing reports of human rights abuses and massacres committed by Sri Lankan soldiers.

The Colombo Page also reported that Russia has promised to increase assistance to improve air operation capabilities of Sri Lanka Air Force. 

The Russian Federation’s Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces, General Oleg Salyukov, who is currently on a five–day official visit, pledged the assistance when he met Defense Secretary Major General Kamal Gunaratne.

Students at the University of Jaffna raised black flags across campus this morning, as Tamils across the North-East marked Sri Lanka’s Independence Day as a day of protest.

Commemoration events have been held in London and Vavuniya for Thikshika Sribalakrishnan, a co-ordinator of the Tamil Youth Organisation in the UK who passed away last week.

Families of the disappeared in Vavuniya lit candles before a portrait of Sribalakrishnan, as they paid tribute to her life during their 1078th day of protest.

The former chief minister of the Northern Province C V Wignewaran has called on the UN Human Rights Council to take up the issue of Tamils who have been forcibly disappeared, after Sri Lanka’s president claimed that missing Tamils “are actually dead”.

The Eelam Tamil family detained at Christmas Island as they fight deportation to Sri Lanka now face a new risk, with the Australian government using the same island to quarantine those who may have been exposed to coronavirus.

Advocates of the family are demanding that they are removed from Christmas Island before it becomes a “quarantine zone” for evacuees from Wuhan in China, where the virus is reported to have originated from.