Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa met with a senior Russian official in Colombo this week, as his cash-stricken government looked to Moscow for a US$ 300 million Credit Line even as international sanctions continued to grow.

Rajapaksa met with a Russian trade delegation headed by Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Alexey Gruzdev, who handed him a list of “proposals for Sri Lanka”. The two countries, both accused of war crimes, have been seeking to grow ties between them.

The meeting comes as Sri Lanka’s envoy in Moscow Janitha Liyanage confirmed that her government has sought a US$ 300 million Credit Line from Russia to purchase crude oil, gas and coal.

A new publication from Amnesty International highlights the “deteriorating human rights situation” in which state authorities have harassed, intimidated, and violated the civil liberties of families of the disappeared, who have been failed by Sri Lankan mechanisms on promises of delivering justice.

At least 27 Sri Lankan nationals currently in Ukraine have refused to return back to the island, claiming they would rather stay in the conflict-stricken country than go back to Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister G L Peiris told reporters this morning the nationals still in Ukraine “have indicated to us that as of now, they do not wish to leave Ukraine,” despite the ongoing Russian military offensive.

Sri Lanka claimed to have “overwhelming support” at the United Nations Human Rights Council today, despite wide-ranging condemnation and concern from a host of member states and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In a statement released by Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier today, it claimed to have “received overwhelming support from countries of the Global South who expressed support for the Government’s significant efforts towards reconciliation”.

Sri Lanka's inflation hits a 13-year high at 15.1 per cent in February, as the economic crisis continues to grip the island. 

Amidst the 49^th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Julie Chung, met with Tamil National Alliance representatives (TNA) R Sampanthan and MA Sumanthiran to discuss “the need for a political solution, accountability & justice for all Sri Lankans”.

Her meeting follows a scathing report by the UN High Commissioner for human rights which slammed Sri Lanka for its failure to produce accountability and increasing militarisation. Her report called for sanctions on senior Sri Lankan officials implicated in war crimes and to pursue alternative avenues for international accountability.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called on Sri Lanka's authorities to immediately drop the "clearly spurious charges" against Tamil journalist Murugupillai Kokulathasan, who was released on bail yesterday after spending over 470 days in detention. 

A 21-year-old Tamil Nadu student, Sainikhesh Ravichandran, in Ukraine has joined an international volunteer military force dedicated to fighting off the Russian invasion.

Tamil families carried out protests in Batticaloa and Jaffna yesterday, calling for an international investigation into enforced disappearances and the Tamil genocide. 

Protests were held in Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya and Colombo today, as International Women’s Day was marked across the island with Tamil women leading demonstrations.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)  conducted an Article IV consultation in Sri Lanka where they stressed the urgency to implement a credible strategy to address one of the worst financial crises the country has faced. 

Sri Lanka’s finance minister has urged all Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) heads of local government bodies to switch off streetlights of their respective areas until the end of March to conserve energy as Sri Lanka’s economic crisis continues to worsen.

Students from Tamil Nadu and Kerala who had managed to arrive in Poland with no support from India's Minister of External Affairs, are now facing further discrimination, according to the latest reports.

Although the official policy was supposed to be “first come first served”, Tamil Nadu and Kerala students report being denied the same preferential treatment as North Indians.

Colombo Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith told the UN Human Rights Council that the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019 were part of a “grand political plot”, in an address were he called on the international body to ensure there was an “impartial investigation to unravel the truth”.