With the district of Vavuniya facing serious threats from the coronavirus pandemic, health officials have expressed their concerns over the indifference of the people towards the virus. 

This comes as forty-five deaths have been recorded in the district in the first week of September alone. 

When inquired about the spike in cases, one official said, “Deaths from coronavirus in Vavuniya are rising at great speed day by day.”

2 brothers from Batticaloa. Mahendiran keerthiseelan and Mahendiran Anujan, were brutally beaten and hosptalised by Sri Lankan police when fuelling their motorcycles at a petrol station in  Thandiyadi on Sunday night.

The incident follows the assult of a Tamil resident of Kokuvil who was summoned to Batticaloa police station on Sunday over a personal dispute. He was tortured to obtain a confession and hospitalised.

In a new report, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) highlight cases of abduction, torture and rape of Tamils in the North-East for participating in commemorative events, protests or for receiving funds from abroad, over the last year. 

The report, which was published today ahead of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session later this month, contains testimonies from 15 Tamils who had been abducted, detained and tortured by Sri Lanka security forces, since Gotabaya Rajapaksa took office as Sri Lanka's president in 2019. The witnesses have now fled the island and reside in the UK. 

Controversial emergency regulation in response to Sri Lanka's food shortages were passed yesterday with a vote of 132 for and 51 against.
The regulations will enable the military to seize stock from traders, who they alledge are hording products, and transfer them into state establishments where they will be sold at government-mandated prices.

Militarisation

Today marks 25 years since the Chemmani massacre of 1996, in which Sri Lankan soldiers raped and murdered Tamil schoolgirl, Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, and three of her family members that had gone looking for her.

Krishanthi Kumaraswamy was an A Level student at Chundikili High School who was kidnapped, gang raped and viciously murdered by Sri Lankan soldiers and police officers on September 7th 1996. Three of her family members who went in search of her were also brutally murdered. 

Former postmaster turned LTTE interpreter, Velupillai Kumaru Pancharatnam, affectionately referred to as George Master, passed away at the age of 85 on Sunday.

Sri Lankan police investigated the leader of the Hindu extremist organisation Siva Senai, Maru Sachithananthan for using the word 'Eelam' on a memorial monument erected to commemorate the forcibly disappeared people in the Maravanpulavu area in Jaffna. 

The body of a Jaffna-based independent Tamil journalist who died of COVID-19 last week, was cremated yesterday. 

Sri Lankan parliament is set to debate the controversial tax amnesty bill which seeks to enable those who have not disclosed any taxable incomes or assets to immediately invest the equivalent amount in the country and pay a voluntary disclosure at one per cent nominal tax.

As garment workers across Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are forced to work in precarious conditions during the pandemic, over 50 labour advocacy groups have called on the governments of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to protect workers.

The joint statement warns that “Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi workers must choose between death and destitution”.