Sri Lankan authorities released 76 Indian fishermen on the day that the Indian external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj arrived on the island to participated in the Indian Ocean Conference. 

The men were arrested and detained, with their fishing boats confiscated in separate incidents over recent months. 

A Sri Lankan court on Thursday granted bail for a Brigadier arrested over the military's shooting of protesters in the island's south in 2013, reports Ada Derana. 

Brigadier Anura Deshapriya Gunawaredena was arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for allegedly ordering soldiers to fire at the crowd who were protested for clean water. 

The Sri Lankan government is due to open an embassy in Erbil announced the head of the Kurdistan Region's Department of Foreign Relations (DFR) this week.

Falah Mustafa said that his government had approved requests from Sri Lanka, as well as Ukraine, to open honorary consulates in the Kurdistan region.

Police in Sri Lankan have launched an official investigation following a complaint that women taking part in a procession in the South were dressed in sarees “similar to the Buddhist flag”.

The Island reports that a group of women at the Hikkaduwa Seenigama Devale had been dressed in the sarees, reportedly leading to “protests from some lay persons”.

The Acting Assistant Secretary of State of the US Alice Wells met with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena  on Thursday, where the two reportedly discussed “democratic reforms and reconciliation process” on the island.

A senior former military official has dismissed war crimes accusations against former army commander Jagath Jayasuriya, who fled Brazil on Sunday after lawsuits were filed against him.

Rtd Major General Kamal Gunaratna, former commander of the 53rd Division which is also thought to have committed mass atrocities during the armed conflict, said the Tamil diaspora orchestrated the charges.

The Acting Assistant Secretary of State of the US, Alice Wells and the US ambassador to Sri Lanka remembered the tens of thousands of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka at an event in Colombo on Tuesday, held to mark International Day of the Disappeared. 

"Today on Int. Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances we honor #DisappearedSL families searching for answers in SL w @State_SCA A/AS Wells," Mr Keshap tweeted. 

The British Tamils Forum and the US Tamil Political Action Council marked  International Day of the Disappeared on Tuesday and called on Sri Lanka to operationalise the Office of Missing Persons. 

Amid military intelligence surveillance, Tamil families of the disappeared marched across the North-East to mark the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance. Demonstrations took place across Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Mannar, Mullaithivu, Vavuniya and Jaffna.

A delegation of the US military "saluted Sri Lanka’s war heroes" during a ceremony at Sri Lanka’s National War Heroes monument "for the first time in recent history", according to the army.lk website. 

A former Sri Lankan general who fled from his post as ambassador to Brazil this week should be referred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague said the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils Paul Scully.

Officials from the Sri Lankan military have denied war crimes charges against a former military commander who was appointed as the government’s ambassador to Brazil and fled from South America earlier this week.

Speaking after General Jagath Jayasuriya arrived back in Colombo, Sri Lanka's military spokesman Roshan Seneviratne denied all reports of war crimes.

Updated 1300 GMT 

Sri Lanka's ambassador to Brazil has fled the country after human rights groups filed lawsuits accusing him of overseeing war crimes on Monday night.

Jagath Jayasuriya has now returned to Colombo via Dubai after fleeing Brazil on Sunday.   

There can be no further delay in bringing a solution for families of the disappeared, Tamil civil society groups have said in a statement of solidarity on International Day of the Disappeared.

With hundreds of families of the disappeared protesting across the North-East since February, the Sri Lankan government has failed to answer any of the their demands to uncover the fates of their disappeared loved ones, the groups said.