The Sri Lankan government officially announced a ‘day of mourning’ for the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi earlier this month, with Colombo’s foreign minister leading a high level delegation to Tehran to attend the funeral.

May 31, 1981 marked not only the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, but the beginning of a week-long rampage of violence by Sri Lankan security forces and Sinhala mobs which devastated the peninsula.

At midnight on May 31, 1981, the Jaffna Public Library, the crucible of Tamil literature and heritage, was set ablaze by Sri Lankan security forces and state-sponsored mobs. The burning has since been marked by Eelam Tamils as an act of genocide.

‘Ray of Hope’, a documentary detailing the journey of former Canadian MP for Scarborough- Rouge River, Rathika Sitsabaiesan, to Sri Lanka’s and the island’s troubled history with genocide and accountability, was screened for at the Frontline Club in London on Tuesday night.

Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) parliamentarian Kulasingam Thileeban has reportedly allocated nearly Rs 1 million in aid of development activities that will allow Sinhalese settlers to relocate to the army-sponsored Nandimithragaama in Vanni. 

Marking 15 years since the end of the armed conflict, Tamil Families of the forcibly Disappeared staged a protest in Mannar demanding an international investigation to shed light on the fate of the thousands forcibly disappeared by the Sri Lankan military.

Responding to meetings between Tamil politicians and Sri Lanka’s President, during his visit to the Northern Province last week, Tamil Families of the Disappeared have protested the action of Tamil politicians and for not raising their issues.

Tamil Protests block an attempted land grab as the Sri Lankan Navy looks to survey four acres for military camp construction.

On 27 May 1958, the Sri Lankan state declared a state of emergency after Sinhala mobs had began attacking, raping and murdering Tamils across the island on 22 May 1958. The series of violence was to become another in a series of deadly anti-Tamil pogroms.

Estimates range from between 300 and 1,500 Tamils murdered in the days of violence which resulted in many more injured and the arson, looting and destruction of Tamil homes and businesses.

Senior figures within the Labour Party addressed an event to mark Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day at the Houses of Parliament this month, where they reiterated pledges to British Tamils and called for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

A protest was held outside the Immigration and Emigration Department in Colombo last month, as anti-Indian sentiment flared in the wake of controversy over VFS Global, a private firm tasked with issuing visas at the Bandaranaike International Airport. 

A member of the opposition party Kabir Hashim, leveled accusations in parliament against the government for intentionally obstructing the process of opening financial bid proposals from companies vying for a contract to construct a 50-megawatt wind power plant.