Villagers from Iranaitivu staged a massive protest this week, sailing to their island which is occupied by the Sri Lankan military and marching to their homes, refusing to leave until they are guaranteed their land will be returned to them.

In a striking and daring demonstration on Monday some 300 Tamils sailed to the island, which has been occupied by the Sri Lankan navy for years. Villagers marched from their protest site on the Kilinochchi district mainland to the coastline where their fishing boats had docked.

China has reiterated that there are no plans of militarising Sri Lanka’s southern Hambantota report reiterated Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickrememsinghe after a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Cheng Xueyuan.

Responding to press concerns about Chinese militarisation of the port, Ambassador Xueyuan said,

The blood of Sinhalese soldiers runs in Tamils that have received treatment at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital, the governor of the Northern Province said on Sunday.

Echoing previous statements he had made about Tamil blood being mixed with Sinhalese, the governor, Reginald Cooray, said that the armed forces donated blood to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital whenever the need arose.

The governor made the remarks at the opening of two new buildings at a Tamil-diaspora funded cultural centre in Punguduthivu.

14 Sri Lankan soldiers from the Vavuniya - Pampaimadu camp were admitted to hospital on Sunday with alleged breathing problems.

The soldiers reportedly developed sudden breathing problems during a training exercise on Sunday morning and were rushed to Vavuniya General Hospital.

Several soldiers were also reported to have received first aid at the camp.

The Sri Lankan Army has re-seized some lands in Valikamam North that were released to their owners earlier this month.

Just two days after releasing around 683 acres from the 28-year occupation of the ’high security zone’, Sri Lankan soldiers blocked off access and reoccupied lands in Thaiyiddi South - Unthuvathai, and the area surrounding the Vellaivaikkal Vairavar temple.

The legacy of Sri Lanka’s human rights abuses was planned to be a main topic of discussion at this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, according to a UK parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee document.

Referring to remarks made by the British Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, the select committee document said that “the legacy of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka” would be a main topic to be discussed as part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s strategic vision for the summit.

The Tamil National People’s Front paid tribute to Annai Poopathy at the party’s Jaffna headquarters on Thursday.

A collection of Tamil diaspora groups have called on Commonwealth countries to exercise universal jurisdiction “to provide accountability in cases where Sri Lanka itself fails to act”.

Sri Lanka’s Buddhasana Minister Gamini Jayawickrama Perera said that some 2,000 Buddhist viharas across the island will be “developed” with extra facilities and accommodation for monks, according to a report in the Daily News.

The minister stated that about 2,469 temples “have no basic facilities” and these would be developed with support from the Education Ministry, Prime Minister’s Office and the Presidential Secretariat.

Despite continued calls for the de-militarisation of the North-East, Sri Lankan military constructed a new tennis court exclusively for the use of its soldiers inside its military headquarters in Mullaitivu last month.