Tamils around the world marked 46 years since the death of Ponnuthurai Sivakumaran, the first Tamil to die in the liberation struggle. At his home town in Urumpirai in Jaffna, senior Tamil politicians held a series of events to mark his sacrifice and pay tribute to his role as the first militant to die in the armed struggle.
The Sri Lankan government has blocked access to renowned Tamil news website Sankathi24.com, as the state continued with its tightening of the Tamil press. The website – www.sankathi24.com – became inaccessible for those on the island on May 28 th last month, with no warning or explanation given by the Sri Lankan state. The latest incident sparked fears for the website’s correspondents who remain in the Tamil homeland. “We fear for the lives of our reporters in Tamil Eelam," said Seraman, a columnist, for Sankathi24.com. “We fear that they may be tracked down.”
Sellaiah Rashanayagam has "been the sole resident of his village since Sri Lanka's civil war ended in 2009- and he doesn't plan to leave anytime soon," writes Vijayatharsiny Vijayakumar for Global Press Journal. "When the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009, the nearly 200 residents who called this village home chose to leave. They relocated to cities and towns where they would have better access to hospitals, shopping centres and jobs. But Sellaiah Rashanayagam, 67, chose to stay." "Now, more than a decade later, he's still the lone resident of Ponnaveli, a village in Sri Lanka's northern province. The coastal village was destroyed during the war. Still, Rashanayagam says he refuses to leave and he doesn't want to open up the village to others either. He wants to preserve the village's Tamil name and farming traditions." "His solitary lifestyle is a political statement. And it's evidence that tensions between Sri Lanka's Sinhalese, and mostly Buddhist majority, and the Tamil, mostly Muslim minority, still run deep."
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan refused to answer several questions on Sri Lanka’s flag and the armed Tamil struggle in a hot-headed interview with Sooriyan FM last week, where he distanced himself from spokesperson M A Sumanthiran as the party’s senior leadership continued to come under criticism. Speaking to Sooriyan FM, Sampanthan became visibly irate during the interview, shaking his fist and refusing to elaborate on several questions, stating that many topics were “old stories”.
May 31, 1981 marked not only the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, but the beginning of a week-long rampage of violence by Sri Lankan security forces and Sinhala mobs which devastated the peninsula. The violence and devastation was largely ignored by the island’s mainstream press, and even in Tamil Nadu reports did not reach the media for many days, as a result of the shutdown of press throughout the North and general censorship imposed by the Sri Lankan government. Notably, the office and presses of Eelanadu, a prolific Tamil daily coming out of Jaffna since 1959, were burnt to the...
At midnight on May 31, 1981, the Jaffna Public Library, the crucible of Tamil literature and heritage, was set ablaze by Sri Lankan security forces and state-sponsored mobs. The burning has since been marked by Eelam Tamils as an act of genocide.
Chinnakannu Kittinan, a 63-year-old farmer, is amongst those who have been hardest hit – having suffered from both the massacres at Mullivaikkal and the state’s militarised COVID-19 response. And yet, he remains resilient, working through most of his day despite his age and the scorching sun, before going home to cook and care for his family.
Today marks 12 years since the death of Brigadier Balraj, a senior commander with the LTTE, who passed away from a sudden heart attack in 2008. Brig. Balraj was famed for his courage, leadership and skills on the battlefield.
Senior British politicians from across the political spectrum have commemorated eleven years since the massacres at Mullivaikkal with messages calling for accountability and genocide recognition, whilst also praising the British Tamil community for their resilience. See messages from British lawmakers below.
Despite the Sri Lankan state’s efforts, Tamils across the North-East lit candles and laid flowers in commemorative events to mark 11 years since the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians in Mullivaikkal.