Sri Lankan police brought the town of Salambaikulam in Vavuniya under full lockdown last week after two people in the area tested positive for coronavirus.
The mother and daughter, who returned to Vavuniya from Colombo last month, were isolated at their home in Salambaikulam. PCR tests which were conducted in Jaffna last Fiday that confirmed both had been infected with the coronavirus.
Sri Lankan police have been seen setting up barricades in the area as they placed it into lockdown.
As coronavirus cases have been rising across the island, military patrols have stepped up across the North-East.
In the south however, Dhammika Bandara, a faith healer from Kegalle, claimed he had invented a tonic that offers “lifetime protection” against COVID-19. Thousands lined the streets of Kegalle to drink the tonic - in breach of military enforced regulations - whilst several Sri Lankan parliamentarians publicly consumed and endorsed the tonic.
Sri Lanka's militarised response to the coronavirus pandemic, which many human rights advocates have voiced concern over, has been accused of normalising military occupation and "exacerbates the existing ethnic divides" on the island.
