“Is it not sad? Who is to blame? I wanted my PM to go there first. I was the second Indian foreign minister to go there [after the war]. But who do I blame for it? I am only disappointed that I could not take the Prime Minister to an area where we are building 50,000 houses. We can’t show him this and the roads and projects that we are building [in Jaffna],”

The newly elected member of the Northern Provincial council, Ananthy Sasitharan, in an interview with Journalists for Democracy, outlined  attacks on families of the disappeared when they attempted to stage demonstrations in front of the David Cameron.

Describing the attacks Ms. Sasitharan, who received the second highest number of votes in the Northern Provincial elections, said,

“When we tried to wave flags and chant slogans, the anti-riots squad police personnel unleashed waves of brutal attack on us. They beat us with batons and kicked us with boots on. Even the Catholic priests and wailing elderly mothers of the disappeared were badly assaulted as the VIPs were going past as mere onlookers.”

“As part of our support for reconciliation efforts across this country, we will provide an additional £2.1 million to support demining work in Jaffna, in Kilinochchi and in Mullaitivu districts – the location of some of the most chilling scenes from Channel 4’s No Fire Zone documentary.”

Several journalists were prevented from entering the final press conference of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Saturday.

See below for tweets from the excluded journalists.

"Never in 40 years of Commonwealth summits has a British Prime Minister faced such a diplomatic showdown with a host leader as Mr Cameron faces."

“The images in that film [No Fire Zone] are completely chilling... It’s an appalling set of allegations and of course these allegations have been backed up by the work of the UN Special Rapporteur who has had them verified."

“These are chilling images of appalling acts and they need to be properly investigated.”

"There are legitimate accusations of war crimes that need to be properly investigated"

"How on earth is it right that that man and that coutry is able to chair an important organisation like the Commonwealth and welcome you as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?"

Please see below extracts of an opinion by Philip Collins written for The Times. See here for article in full.

The Rajapaksa regime is happy to butcher its citizens. Britain should have joined the summit boycott.

"This is a regime of unspeakable brutality whose original ethnic hatred has transmuted into a love of power and a ruthless happiness to butcher anyone who stands in the way. This is a regime from the dreams of tyranny.

"This is no country for any summit of a reputable international body such as the Commonwealth. This is no place for a British Prime Minister or heir to the throne to visit. Foreign policy sometimes means dialogue with the deranged but there has to be a line and the Sri Lankan Government long ago crossed over to the darker side.

Tamil demonstrators protesting to highlight the prevalent disappearances, human rights abuses, on-going militarisation and lack of accountability and justice in the North-East were prevented from voicing their concerns to David Cameron today, as the British Premier met the Chief Minister C.V Wigneswaran in Jaffna.

Protestors faced strong intimidation from the Sri Lankan police as they attempted to stage demonstrations near sites being visited by David Cameron in Jaffna.

See below for twitter updates from this morning’s events.