Police officers across the Northern province this week had their leave cancelled until May 20 citing security fears ahead of May 18 Tamil genocide remembrance events. 

Senior officers said that extra police officers would be needed to prevent violence. 

Tamils across the North-East and worldwide will be commemorating the genocide of Tamils in the final stages of the armed conflict at remembrance events on May 18. 

Previous years have repeatedly seen increased military and police personnel in the North-East, citing the risk of violence. 

Police officers in Ilavalai, Jaffna warned locals against holding any remembrance events commemorating the those who were killed in the last stages of the armed conflict. 

Civil society groups and locals had planned to hold a remembrance event on May 18, at 5.30pm. 

Ordering the event to be cancelled, the Ilavalai police station's head officer warned, "if you hold any event on May 18 it will be considered as a commemoration of the LTTE therefore we will not allow this event to happen." 

The thirty-six Tamils massacred by Sri Lankan navy officers on board the Kumuthini boat on May 15, 1985 were remembered on Tuesday in Neduntheevu. 

Families of those who were killed came to the memorial to light candles and lay flowers in memory of their loved ones. 

Sri Lanka’s Major General Udaya Perera, the former Commander of the Security Force Headquarters in Killinochchi, vehemently denied the military was involved in disappearances and said those who believed the army was keeping anyone in detention should “go and see a psychiatrist”.

Maj Gen Perera, who also held the post of Director of Operations in the military during and after the war, denied the armed forces were complicit in any disappearances.

“I can vouch and say there was no policy of such nature,” he told Al Jazeera’s 101 East.

The International Truth and Justice Project released a list of 280 names of forcibly disappeared Tamils, including the names of at least 29 children today.

The list is corroborated from eyewitness in the North-East and abroad, is the start of a new project by the ITJP to build a list of all those that surrendered themselves to Sri Lanka’s armed forces at the end of the armed conflict in 2009. 

A resolution on the Tamil genocide on Sri Lanka was delivered in Canada's parliament, before a cross party group of parliamentarians earlier this month, as the ‘Second International Conference on Tamil Nationhood and Genocide in Sri Lanka’ concluded in Ottawa.

Members of the Northern Provincial Council including its chief minister, C V Wigneswaran met with families in Iranaitivu on Monday, who have returned to reclaim their homes on the island and provided them with food items. 

Addressing students at an awards ceremony in Jaffna on May 11, Sri Lanka's army commander in the region, Major General Darshana Hettiarachchi told youths to join the military. 

Over 600 Tamil students at Venthan Arts College were being awarded for the completion of a Sinhala language course. 

Stating that Jaffna Tamils were very intelligent and have a long history of working as government officials including doctors and engineers, Major General Hettiarachchi argued, "a military job is also a government job". 

Marking Mother's Day on Sunday Tamil youths joined mothers of the disappeared, who have been holding a continous protest in Vavuniya, to hold a rally demanding justice. 

Mothers of the disappeared in Vavuniya have been protesting continuously for over 444 days demanding answers over the whereabouts of their children.  

Students at the Eastern University in Batticaloa are to remember the genocide of Tamils during the final stages of the armed conflict in 2009 over a two day period from May 17 - 18 this year. 

Speaking to journalists, the head of the Arts Students Union, Dineskanth said a blood donation drive would be held on Thursday followed by a remembrance event on May 18.