A shipment of urgently needed medicines, rice and milk powder from Tamil Nadu arrived in Sri Lanka on Sunday, as the island’s economic crisis continues.

Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force has reportedly arrested as many as 21 Tamils last week, as they prepared to flee the island to seek asylum abroad.

As many as 42 Eelam Tamil asylum-seekers have launched a hunger strike after eight months of being detained on a military base 3,000 miles south of India, as a plea to the UK government to allow them to seek asylum in another country.  

The 42 refugees are part of a group of 89 Eelam Tamils, including 20 children who set out from southern India in a fishing boat in late September 2021 in the hopes of claiming asylum in Canada. Most of the group fled to India years earlier to escape death and violence during the culmination of the Tamil Genocide in Mullivaikkal of 2009. At least one of the asylum seekers took part in the Pottuvil to Polikandy (P2P) protest rally last year

Vivekanandan Piriyangan has been hospitalised after being brutally assaulted by thugs with close ties to Sri Lankan military intelligence for organising the commemoration event in Mullivaikkal earlier this week. 

The National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) said the Canadian parliament's recognition of the the Tamil genocide is an "important step in the right direction" and called on other countries to follow suit to "help achieve justice for the victims of Tamil Genocide."

In a statement thanking the Canadian House of Commons for passing the motion ealrier this week, the NCCT said:

Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying it “categorically rejects” the unanimous motion by the Canadian government to recognise May 18 as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.

In a statement reacting to the recognition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states: 

Japan announced its pledge of US$1.5 million in emergency medical aid to Sri Lanka as the island continues to deal with it's worsening economic crisis.

Yesterday, Tamil Canadians gathered in Scarborough and Ottawa to mark the newly recognized Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day. 

As Tamils in the homeland travelled to the Mullivaikal memorial site to commemorate Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day, People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL) documented the proliferation of Sri Lankan military checkpoints at key locations, situated along roads leading to the site.

Sri Lanka has officially defaulted on its international debt for the first time in its history amidst warnings of accelerating inflation,  as the island’s economic crisis continues.

Ahead of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue Alliance’s (QUAD) meeting on 22 May, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged leaders of the four-member states to address (the United States, India, Japan and Australia) to address democratic backsliding in Asia.

Yesterday was Tamil Genocide Day, a day of solemn remembrance and collective mourning. Across the Tamil homeland and around the world, millions commemorated their kith and kin who were deliberately and systematically massacred by the Sri Lankan state. This year, as flames were lit and flowers laid across the North-East, political turmoil continues to rage across the South. Whilst Colombo’s politicians tussle for power, international focus remains on whether Sri Lanka will be able to climb out of the crisis in which it has landed. May 18, more than any other day, served as a reminder that unless deep-rooted structural changes are enacted and the Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism confronted, it never will.

Tamils in Denmark held a rally in Copenhagen today to mark 13 years since the massacre at Mullivaikkal and to demand justice for the war crimes committed by Sri Lanka.