British parliamentarian Theresa Villiers said that the UK needs to consider travel bans and asset freezes on Sri Lankan officials that may be implicated in war crimes, as she travelled to the UN Human Rights council to discuss accountability for mass atrocities this week.

Despite global concerns regarding the coronavirus outbreak, Villiers said she travelled to Geneva because she has “British Tamil constituents who wanted me to go to the UN session to talk to the national delegations there about the importance of human rights in Sri Lanka”.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran said the Sri Lankan military’s decision to set up a detention centre to quarantine and screen potential patients for coronavirus “has created fear among the people living in that area” and called on Colombo to “ pay heed to the concerns of the public”.

Sri Lanka’s defence secretary admitted that not all foreign arrivals have been willing to go into mandated quarantine at detention centres that the military has constructed, in the wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

The head of the Sri Lankan army called on the public to trust the security forces and boasted of its military victory that killed tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, as it continued running detention centres and leading the regime’s current coronavirus counter-strategy. 

The total number of people currently infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus has now risen to 10 in Sri Lanka, as the foreign ministry confirmed the family member of an officer was one of those diagnosed positive.

In a statement this morning, the Ministry of Foreign Relations confirmed that “one of the family members of an officer of the Foreign Ministry” has tested positive and since Friday the officer concerned has been self quarantined.

Tamil women “have been protesting for the past three years, demanding army returns their land confiscated during the civil war,” Al Jazeera reports.

Chandraleela Jasinthan and her neighbours were forced out of their homes during the last days of the civil war. 10 years later and the army is still occupying their land.

The Sri Lankan military has begun quarantining foreign arrivals in detention centres hundreds of miles away from Colombo and in the Tamil North-East, as part of moves to tackle the spread of the coronavirus despite public health concerns and Tamil opposition.

In Vavuniya, the Sri Lankan army began quarantining arrivals from abroad by sending them to the Pampaimadu Army Camp.

At least six people have been arrested by Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force earlier today after locals protested against the transfer of a patient suspected of having coronavirus to the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital.

Sri Lanka’s Election Commission said preparations for parliamentary elections that are scheduled next month are continuing, despite rising numbers of COVID-19 coronavirus cases on the island.

The commander of the Sri Lankan security forces in Jaffna met with Afghanistan’s ambassador this week, where the two reportedly discussed “nation-building and reconciliation efforts”.

Queues were seen across petrol stations in the North-East today, as locals sought to stock up on essential goods in light of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

Supermarkets and other stores across the region were unusually busy, as shoppers flocked with news that the number of coronavirus cases on the island has risen.

Sri Lanka’s Bureau of Foreign Employment announced that it would be barring all travel abroad for employment, as the state enforced more restrictions in light of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.  

The announcement comes after the government said it was suspending its visa on arrival system for all foreign arrivals.

Armed Sri Lankan soldiers questioned a Tamil journalist and intimidated locals as they gathered to mark 11 years since the massacres of thousands of Tamil civilians in Mullivaikkal this week.