Updated 1845 GMT

Sri Lankan police officers forced entry into a house in Jaffna and viciously attacked family members with their guns and bats, leaving at least three Tamil women hospitalised.

The three women were rushed to the Base Hospital in Manthikai, Jaffna earlier today, with one of the women unconscious from the violent assault. Children and elderly people living in the house were also ruthlessly assaulted, with officers threatening to arrest people on false drug possession charges.

A small war-impacted school in Mullaitivu celebrated as two of its students, both who were left paralyzed from the waist down by Sri Lankan military attacks in 2009, achieved top marks in their O-Level exam results this week.

One of the schoolchildren, Vidurshika, spoke to the Tamil Guardian at her home in Mullaitivu the day after she received her results.

She was just 6-years-old when a Sri Lankan soldier shot her in the back.

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary since the abduction and murder of Tamil journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram.

Sivaram, popularly known under his nom-de-plume Taraki, was abducted in front of Bambalipitiya police station in Colombo on April 28 and was found dead several hours later in a high security zone in Sri Lanka's capital, which at the time had a heavy police and military presence due to the ongoing conflict. His killers, highly suspected to be linked to the government of then-president Chandrika Kumaratunga, were never caught.

The death of a Tamil asylum seeker from coronavirus last week has highlighted criticism of Britain’s immigration policy towards migrants in the country, including those who have been fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka.

Alakaratnam Jeevithan, an asylum seeker from Jaffna, came to the UK ten years ago as he fled Sri Lankan state repression. Yet despite being in Britain for over a decade, his asylum claim was never fully accepted and he had continued to fight legal battles until his death from coronavirus at a London hospital last week.

Today marks the first Easter Sunday since the suicide bomb attacks last year that killed 359 people and injured 500 more, in a series of explosions targeting churches and luxury hotels.

Updated 2220 GMT

A British Tamil doctor who was working on the frontlines of the country’s National Health Service has passed away after contracting coronavirus.

Dr Anton Sebastianpillai, a consultant geriatrician at Kingston Hospital, passed away on the weekend at the hospital’s intensive care unit. His final shift at the hospital had been on March 20.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began a number of countries around the world have released thousands of prisoners in order to stem a possible spread of the virus within prisons. According to public health experts, prisons are a ripe place for the spread of COVID-19 due to the close contact between prisoners, overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.

A Sri Lankan soldier who was sentenced to death over the massacre of eight Tamil civilians, including children, has received a presidential pardon and been released home.

As coronavirus cases escalate across the island, hospitals and clinics across the North-East are bracing themselves for any potential outbreak, with many concerned at Colombo’s militarised and ‘politicised’ strategy.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Tamil Guardian, one local clinician warned that systemic racism within Sri Lankan state institutions is risking lives.

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.