Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader and Jaffna District parliamentarian Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has condemned the killing of 32-year-old Ethirmanasingham Kapilraj in Mullaitivu, describing it as a “planned murder by the Sri Lankan Army” and a stark example of the military’s ongoing hostility towards Tamils in the North-East.

As Israel faces global outrage for imposing its siege on Gaza by cutting off food, water, and supplies to 2.3 million Palestinians, observers of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict hear chilling echoes. 

Commemorations were held across the North-East today to mark the 19th anniversary of the Sencholai massacre, when a Sri Lankan Air Force airstrike on 14 August 2006 killed 53 Tamil schoolgirls and four staff members at the Sencholai children’s home in Vallipunam, Mullaitivu.

Sri Lankan opposition leader Sajith Premadasa has condemned Israel’s killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif and his colleagues in Gaza, calling it “an absolute crime against humanity and press freedom.”

Today marks the 19th anniversary of the massacre of 53 school girls by the Sri Lankan Air Force. 

A rolling 100-day campaign demanding an irrevocable, collective form of power-sharing for the merged Northern and Eastern provinces continued this week, with residents of Puliyankulam in Mullaitivu staging the eleventh consecutive day of protests.

A human chain protest in Vavuniya extended solidarity to the ongoing protest in Mannar, which is demanding an immediate halt to the controversial wind power project and opposing proposed ilmenite mining on the island.

A new report from the United Nations Human Rights Office has called on the Sri Lankan government to address the “human rights violations and international crimes” as well as the “root causes” of the island’s ethnic conflict – but stopped short of endorsing a fully internationalised accountability mechanism.

Tamil fishermen in Mullaitivu have condemned what they describe as a covert move by Sri Lanka’s Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to allow Sinhala fishermen from Weli Oya to operate along the Pulipaainthakal coast, which they say risks fuelling ethnic tensions.