In the 39 years since the pogroms of Black July, few images exist of the horrific violence that was unleashed on Tamils by Sinhala and Sri Lankan government backed mobs.

The photographs that do still survive are vivid.

Using the genealogy platform MyHeritage, we have enhanced and colourised some of the few photographs that have lasted. They offer a stunning new glimpse into the horrors of the pogrom.

Today marks thirty-nine years since the horrors of the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983, when thousands of Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs backed by the then-UNP government and state forces.

Following a brutal crackdown on demonstrators in Galle Face, Colombo, Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe has sworn in a new cabinet comprised of those with troubled records.

More than a year after he was initially arrested, the mayor of Jaffna has finally been acquitted over charges that he was attempting to revive the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), after he launched blue uniforms for a local task force.

V. Manivannan was initially arrested by Sri Lanka’s Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) in April 2021, who claimed the uniforms worn by the task force were similar to those formerly worn by the LTTE's Tamil Eelam Police and were thus an attempt to resurrect the LTTE.

The US Ambassador to Sri Lanka met with newly appointed president Ranil Wickremesinghe to express her “grave concern over the unnecessary and deeply troubling escalation of violence”, after an early morning raid on a protest site in the capital injured scores of demonstrators.

The Chief Whip of the Liberal Democrats reiterated earlier calls for an international arrest warrant to be issued for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as pressure mounts of governments around the world to prosecute him for genocide.

The former Sri Lankan president is currently thought to be in Singapore after having fled Sri Lanka.

Following months of protest, Sri Lanka’s military have stormed the protest site in Galle Face destroying the settlement where less than a hundred protesters were camping.

French Tamils commemorated Black Tigers Day in Paris earlier this month, paying tribute to fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

An event was held in Bobigny, with musical tributes and flowers laid before portraits of fallen cadres.

Arputham Ammal, the mother of A.G. Periarivalan, who was imprisoned for over 31 years over his alleged role in the 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassination, was celebrated at a function in Tamil Nadu earlier this month, where she was praised for her resilience.

Sri Lanka’s president Ranil Wickremesinghe paid a visit to the Defence Headquarters Complex hours after he was sworn in this morning, where he shook hands with accused war criminals and ceremonially lit a lamp before a statue of the Buddha.

Demonstrations have been held outside Singapore’s embassies around the world, calling on the country to arrest Sri Lanka’s former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and prosecute him for genocide.

Canadian lawmaker Gary Anandasangaree called on his government to impose sanctions on former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday, days after they lost immunity from prosecution.

Within hours of being appointed Sri Lanka’s new president, Ranil Wickremesinghe issued a stark warning to the island’s protestors, as government supporters reportedly attacked a demonstration site and a court blocked protests at another major site in the Southern capital.

“We will deal with them firmly according to the law,” he warned. “We will not allow a minority of protesters to suppress the aspirations of the silent majority clamouring for a change in the political system.”