At least two more Eelam Tamil families fled Sri Lanka and arrived in Dhanushkodi as refugees this week, with more looking to flee to Tamil Nadu in the wake of a worsening economic crisis and military occupation on the island.

Sri Lanka’s former resident and ex-prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, broke his silence over the weekend as he defended the record of his war-crimes accused brother and maintained that his only folly was that “he became soft”.

“Gotabaya Rajapaksa is not responsible for all the country’s ills. Everybody, including me and the previous governments, would have to answer,” Mahinda Rajapaksa told the Sunday Times.

Locals in Mullaitivu managed to block Sri Lankan authorities from yet another land grab attempt as they looked to expand the existing  'Vattuvakal Gotabaya Navy base' by seizing 617 acres of private land.

Representatives from the USA, European Union, Canada and international human rights organisations have expressed their concern and censured the Sri Lankan government over its use of anti-terror legislation to detain three Sinhalese student leaders this week.

The activists were all arrested last week and are currently being held under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), a piece of legislation that has come under criticism for decades for its arbitrary use against Tamils.

A commemoration event was held in Jaffna this weekend to mark 16 years since the assassination of Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, who was a former member of parliament, the veteran chairman of Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society (MPCS) and the Managing Director of Jaffna Tamil daily "Namathu Eelanadu" when he was killed.

Tamil-Canadian actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan stars in the popular Netflix series ‘Never Have I Ever’ following a teenage Tamil girl, ‘Devi Vishwakumar’, as she navigates life through an American High school involving romances, her father passing away and family drama.

UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, Hanaa Singer, and UN Regional Director, David McLachlan-Karr met with the Tamil Families of the Disappeared, civil society organisations and held a separate meeting with Sri Lanka’s President, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardene.

As the EU stressed in conversations with Sri Lanka’s president the need for concrete steps on human rights, Britain’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka announced that UK’s new Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) will bolster Sri Lanka’s economy without commenting on the country’s dire human rights record.

Amidst international outcry over Sri Lanka’s crackdown on peaceful demonstrators, Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe has issued an extraordinary gazette summoning the tri-forces to maintain public order across the island with effect from August 22.

This comes despite the president not extending the state of emergency claiming that normalcy has returned to the country.