The Mauritian Prime Minister, Navin Ramgoolan, will not be attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka this week.

Ramgoolan is reported to have made the announcement at the Mauritian parliament on Tuesday, when responding to a question by the opposition leader, Paul Bérenger, who has previously called for a boycott of the summit.

"This is a decision taken by a sovereign Mauritius in the face of the absence of progress in Sri Lanka on the respect of human rights," Ramgoolan told parliament.

He went on to add that Mauritius, which is set to host the next CHOGM, believes that

"human rights are more important than everything else".

British Premier David Cameron and other Commonwealth leaders going to the summit in Sri Lanka this week “have a duty to hold their hosts to account” for crimes against humanity there during and since the war’s end, The Times newspaper said in its editorial Tuesday. 

Students from Loyola College in Tamil Nadu remained steadfast in their call for a complete boycott of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo by the international community, and continued to call for Sri Lanka to be suspended from the Commonwealth.

In an interview from Chennai, Joe Britto from Loyola College said to the Tamil Guardian,

"We, the students of Tamil Nadu, we strictly condemn that - that conference shouldn't be happening in Sri Lanka, and we will protest on the streets, and we will raise our voice against the Sri Lankan Commonwealth conference."

“This is a big loss, because if our relationship with our neighbour appears to breakdown, no one can say it will be a good thing,”

The sole provider of flights from Colombo to Jaffna, has been instructed by the Sri Lankan government to suspend all flights until the 18^th of November.  

Hindered by the flight suspensions, Canadian officials who arrived in Colombo this week resorted to travelling by road to reach Jaffna on Tuesday.