The Sri Lankan government has criticised Israel for “settlement expansion” in the West Bank and called for the implementation of UN resolutions regarding the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to statehood and the attainment of a two State solution,” even whilst Colombo continues its own Sinhala colonisation of the Tamil North-East.

Tamil refugees from Eelam that are currently residing in camps across Tamil Nadu, have been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown that followed, whilst continuing to face threats to their livelihood.

Besides the threat of contracting the virus in the cramped refugee camps scattered across the state, most of them have also lost a means to earn a daily wage. “Prior to the lockdown, we had been working in areas beyond Cuddalore. But now, we are unable to go to work even within Cuddalore,” Gunarathinam, an inmate of Kurinjipadi camp near Cuddalore told BBC Tamil.  More than 400 Eelam families reside at the camp.

The sick and the elderly who are stricken with conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure are being treated in hospitals like COVID-19 patients, they added, which subjects them to especially unpleasant ordeals. 

The European Union’s Election Commission has decided against deploying a fully-fledged observer mission for Sri Lanka’s upcoming parliamentary elections, which is et to take place on August 5 despite logistical and health concerns relating to COVID-19.

Britain’s Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the UK was “monitoring the situation in Sri Lanka closely” and continues to support “Sri Lanka's accountability commitments” made to the United Nations Human Rights Council, in response to questions on Sri Lanka this week.

Yet another Tamil father who was searching for his forcibly disappeared child has died today, despite more than 1,222 days of protest in Vavuniya.

Thirunavukarasu, a 69-year-old man from Chettikulam, spent more than a decade demanding information on the whereabouts of his son Wickeswaran, who went missing in Vavuniya in 2008.

The all Sinhala Presidential Task Force to manage “Archaeological Heritage” in the Eastern Province serves the interests of Sinhala Buddhists only says Tamil National Alliance Leader (TNA) leader R  Sampanthan.

In a letter to the Sri Lankan President, Sampanthan reportedly questioned why other religions and communities had been left out of the task force.  

In his letter, Sampanthan wrote:

The people from the village of Kanchuraimoddai in Vavuniya North, staged a protest on Monday calling for the “atrocious” land grab by the Sri Lanka forest department to be addressed.

The people who were displaced during the 1980’s and 90’s due to the war and ended up in places like India, have now returned to being denied access to their land. They cleaned and set up temporary bins on the land their parents used to live on.

The families of the disappeared in Mullaitivu have asked the international community to “urgently come forward and help investigate the Sinhala chauvinist government’s genocide by establishing a special tribunal” and to take the government to the International Criminal Court to seek justice.

Pro-government paramilitary leader Karuna Amman caused controversy in the Sinhala south this week, after he boasted of killing thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers as part of the LTTE’s capture of Elephant Pass in 2000, before he defected and joined the Sri Lankan state.

Addressing a political rally in the East, Karuna claimed to have killed “2000 to 3,000 Sri Lankan Army personnel in one night at Elephant Pass”.

In an open letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister, and current Finance Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, the former Finance Minister, defends the conduct of Sri Lanka’s Central Bank officials from what he describes as a “tantrum” from Sri Lanka’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The funeral of a Tamil man who was shot dead by the Sri Lankan army took place in Jaffna yesterday, as Sri Lankan security forces took out a court order banning all protests from taking place in the region.

Attempted phishing attacks aimed at journalists has led to Colombo-based website Groundviews shutting down a WhatsApp group earlier this month, over fears of cyber attacks.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, retired Major General Muhammad Saad Khattak, told a private television station that Pakistan had warned Sri Lanka of the Easter Sunday attacks, which claimed over 250 lives, but the Sri Lankan government failed to take follow up action.