The District Disaster Management Group announced 1,428 families have been displaced due to floods in Mannar, reports Uthayan.

According to figures obtained by the Jaffna daily, 2,903 members from 758 families in the Mannar region Secretariat division, 41 members from 12 families in the Naanaattaan Region Secretariat division and 2,714 from 658 families in the Manthai West Secretariat Division have been displaced and are now residing in temporary camps.

The Chenmai mass graves were first discovered after a Sri Lankan soldier, charged of raping and murdering a Tamil teenager in July 1998, revealed the whereabouts of a mass grave site where he had been tasked with burying over 400 bodies.

Ravana Balaya, a Sinhala Buddhist organisation, announced that it will be supporting incumbent Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, at the forthcoming presidential elections, on Sunday.

ColomboPage reported that the announcement was made at the annual Ravana Balaya congress that was held in Colombo. The leader of the organisation, Buddhist monk Iththakande Saddhathissa, reportedly vowed to defeat opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena, stating that his candidacy was an attempt to cause division amongst Sinhala leaders.

The announcement follows another Sinhala Buddhist group, Boda Bala Sena, pledging their “unconditional support” to Mahinda Rajapaksa. See more here.

Also see more of Ravana Balaya's activities in the past year in our earlier posts:

"Recently, societal ills have increased amongst youths [in Jaffna]. Sword fights and gang fights have increased. I produced the Maaveerar Naal posters to show the LTTE was still present, as no one would engage in such activities, if they felt they were around."

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a former coalition partner in President Rajapaksa's UPFA, has announced it will sign a memorandum of understanding with the opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena, after which they will actively support his campaign, the Daily Mirror reported.

The JHU, made up of Buddhist monks, said to the paper that Sirisena had given a positive response to the proposals put forward by the party, the same proposals which were rejected by Mahinda Rajapaksa, causing the monks to quit the coalition.