The Sri Lankan military interrogated a Tamil youth in Jaffna on Saturday, after accusing him of leading a campaign which has seen growing calls for the removal of a military base from the local area.

Soldiers reportedly raided the house of the youth in Chulipuram on Friday evening, and told his family that he was to be summoned for questioning the next day.

Though others tried to accompany him to the army camp on Saturday, soldiers only allowed the youth to enter. During his interrogation, he was reportedly asked to sign a letter stating that he did not want the military to leave the area.

Amnesty International has expressed concern about reports of attacks, harassment and intimidation of human rights organisations as well as media organisations and journalists in Sri Lanka in the period since the Easter Sunday bombings.

Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa told the United Nations’ resident co-ordinator on the island that the thousands of forcibly disappeared and missing Tamils “are actually dead”, in a widely condemned declaration on Friday.

According to the official Sri Lankan president’s media division, Rajapaksa met with Hanaa Singer, where “he explained that these missing persons are actually dead”.

The statement will have caused widespread offence across the Tamil North-East, where families of the disappeared have been protesting on the roadside for over 1,000 days, demanding to know the fate of their loved ones.

The Indian government has pledged US $50 million for Colombo to purchase military equipment, despite the Sri Lankan security forces’ record of torture, sexual violence and mass atrocities.

The announcement came after India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on Saturday met Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Colombo.

Students and staff at the University of Jaffna came together to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the ‘Pongu Tamil’ uprising this week.

Several types of landmines were spotted in the Vattuvakal river bank near the Vattuvakal Bridge in Mullaitivu on Tuesday. 

Following the discovery, Mullaitivu police were informed and they arrived at the site to inspect and determine the types of landmines that were present.

Sri Lankan police are reportedly engaged in the process of obtaining a court order to permit them to dispose the 9 landmines that were recovered.

Sri Lanka’s Office on Missing Persons (OMP) said “wide consultations with families of the missing and disappeared” needs to take place before any amendments are made to the Office on Missing Persons (Establishment, Administration and Discharge of Functions) Act No. 14 of 2016 (the Act).

The announcement comes after Sri Lankan government has announced it will “review” the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) Act, which was brought in by the previous regime as part of its commitments to a UN Human Rights Council resolution on accountability.

The Russian government will continue to provide arms and ammunition to the Sri Lankan military, despite widespread concerns over rights violations, announced Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov during a visit to Colombo last week.

Addressing reporters in Colombo, Lavrov said that “Sri Lanka and Russia work together very closely, especially, the law enforcement and defense ministries”.

“We are ready to continue to provide the Sri Lankan forces with all the weapons they need for security,” he added.

A Buddhist religious flag was hoisted n front of Jaffna bus station in the centre of the city by a group of unknown persons on Monday evening, despite protests from the local Tamil community.

Local shop owners in the town said the Buddhist flag had appeared overnight with a makeshift flagpole, with no signs to indicate why it was there or who had raised it. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers are deployed across the heavily militarised North-East. 

Gotabaya addressing military as Defence Secretary

In their annual global human rights report, Human Rights Watch (HRW), warns that Sri Lanka is in ‘great peril’ of losing ground since the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and subsequent appointment of several ministers who have credible human rights accusations against them.

Meenakshi Ganguly, HRW’s South Asia director stated on the matter;