With Tamils across the North-East mourning the tens of thousands killed by the Sri Lankan military during the Mullivaikkal genocide, the Sri Lankan president instead took part in a ceremony to mark ‘War Heroes Commemoration Month’.

Ranil Wickremesinghe was photographed alongside several military officials, including current defence secretary Kamal Gunaratne who stands accused of war crimes, as the ‘the National War Heroes Flag’ was pinned to his chest.

(Image courtesy: Nitin Kanotra | Hindustan Times)

Despite the presence of thousands of Eelam Tamils who continue to seek asylum and refuge in India, only one Eelam Tamil, Nalini Kirubakaran was given the civic right to vote in India’s Lok Sabha elections this year. 

The Commander of Sri Lanka’s Army Vikum Liyanage has filed legal action against an individual under the newly legislated  Online Safety Act, after a social media post accused him of war crimes and corruption.

Tamils in Jaffna have demanded the Northern Provincial Governor provide them unfettered road access to lands that were allegedly “released” by the Sri Lankan government but remain restricted by military checkpoints. 

The family and community of a Tamil man, whom Sri Lanka Police officers assaulted at the Puliyankulam station, organized a protest outside the station. They demanded the arrest of the officer-in-charge and his presentation before the courts.

Former Sri Lankan president and accused war criminal Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga recently addressed an event at the Science Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies, despite her history of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.

Kumaratunga was invited to give introductory remarks at the inauguration of the French university’s South Asia program. She joined the session virtually while other members of the faculty and alumni presided over the event.

All images courtesy of Phoenix TNG 

A multi-sensory art exhibition was held in Basel, Switzerland, over the weekend to commemorate and raise awareness on the 2009 Tamil genocide.

The exhibition, organised by Phoenix TNG in collaboration with LOTTA, drew attention to the massacre at Mullivaikkal, where Sri Lanka's forces slaughtered an estimated 169 796 Tamils.

As part of a series marking 15 years since the atrocities of Mullivaikkal, we share a reflection from the homeland.

At the end of the Mullivaikkal genocide, it was estimated that there were almost 80,000 woman-headed households in the North and East.

In this video, a Tamil woman whose husband and brothers were disappeared during the war, reflects on the struggles she goes through as the head of the household and the gender-based discrimination in the society she lives in.

This interview was originally published in May 2020.
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On this day 15 years ago, Stephen Sunthararaj, an activist who had exposed the trafficking of Tamil children into international prostitution rings, was abducted and forcibly disappeared in Colombo by armed men in military uniforms.

As part of his work he had told the then United States Ambassador in Colombo about prostitution rings run by government aligned paramilitaries in Jaffna. The paramilitaries were trafficking children into sex rings in India and Malaysia with the help of immigration officials.

The Mullaitivu Magistrate court has urged Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department to reconsider its case against 130 Tamils in the North-East. The Department alleges that the Tamils have unlawfully occupied and cleared parcels of land, but the Tamils refute this, asserting ownership through centuries-old deeds.