Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the country needed the international community support it more, and claimed “far too little” help had been given to assist the government.

In an op-ed for the Japan Times, the prime minister said the assistance was needed as people in Sri Lanka may become discouraged and be “tempted” by autocratic forces, waiting to return to power at the next elections.

“We cannot fully turn the page on authoritarian rule, restore the full range of democratic freedoms and rebuild our economy in an inclusive way on our own. [...] We simply lack the resources to undertake the great task of reconstruction without assistance,” he said.

Sri Lanka will announce a domestic investigation into the end of the ethnic conflict by the end of June, said president Maithripala Sirisena in an interview with Time.

“We have informed the UN that we’ll have a strong internal mechanism to look into this and we’ve asked for advice and consultancy though the UN high Commissioner for Human Rights,” he said.

Speaking to Time Magazine, Sri Lanka’s president said that he planned to dissolve Parliament in May and hold general elections in late June or early July.

The Bishop of Jaffna Thomas Savundranayagam told the Australian High Commissioner Robyn Mudie that former members of the LTTE who had gone through the military’s ‘rehabilitation’ are still being intimidated frequently, Ceylon Today reports.

Rev Savundranayagam said the new government should ensure the safety of the former cadres.

Two Tamil refugees were arrested by India’s coast guard on Tuesday, according to police.

The youths, form a refugee camp in Trichy, were being monitored by the ‘Q Branch’, a special unit within the Tamil Nadu police force, Outlook reported.

Police say they escaped from the camp and were on their way to Sri Lanka when they were detained.

Residents in Kilinochchi demanded to be resettled in their original lands, reports Uthayan.

Families who had been displaced since 1995, speaking to the Uthayan, said that at least 3000 families in the regions of Vempodukeni, Mukamalai and Ithavil were living as refugees.

The resettlement in the mentioned regions has been delayed over the past 5 years due to government claims that explosives may still be present in the unoccupied lands.
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