The United States Tamil Political Action Council released an updated version of their #GetThePicture campaign map this week, detailing the long history of massacres that took place across the Tamil North-East, at the hands of the Sri Lankan state.

Announcing the updated maps, Dr. Karunyan Arulanantham, President of USTPAC said,

"The Tamils have suffered massacres and violence at the hands of the mono-ethnic Sinhala military since 1958 with increasing frequency and barbarity."

"This unchecked and systematic decades-long violence culminated in a genocidal onslaught in 2009 in which 146,000 Tamils are unaccounted for, and the continuing military occupation of Tamils in the North-East and forced land grabs all point to the intention and designs of Sri Lankan state to marginalize the Tamils and reduce them into a submissive minority."

The US has the opportunity to prosecute Sri Lankan war criminals and place sanctions on Sri Lanka, the Congressional Caucus on Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka heard at a discussion last week.

The caucus held its second such event on Capitol Hill last Wednesday.

The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict concluded in London last week, with 155 states endorsing a joint declaration pledging to work to prevent and punish sexual violence.

The four-day summit saw countries from across the globe pledge to improve the response and support to victims of sexual violence and their access to justice, as well as exclude such crimes from amnesty provisions.

See the full declaration here.

As public exhibitions, theatre productions and discussions took place, ministers from around the world gathered to discuss the issue of sexual violence in conflict and measures that could to taken to prevent rape, protect the victims and punish the perpetrators. The key initiative launched by the British government was the 'International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict’.

In the run up to the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict,due to take place in London tomorrow, we revisit the evidence documenting the use of sexual violence by Sri Lanka's military against Tamils in the island's ethnic conflict. Photograph - UK Foreign Secretary William Hague calls for perpetrators of sexual violence in Sri Lanka's conflict to be brought to account, speaking in Colombo, Nov 2013