At the UN Human Rights Council this week, there was a range of responses from member states over Sri Lanka’s human rights record and the UN’s evidence-gathering mandate, with the EU, UK and several partners reiterating the need for accountability whilst others including Russia, Belarus, Iran, Pakistan, Venezuela and others attacked international scrutiny and urged deference to Colombo’s “domestic processes”.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk delivered his report on Sri Lanka to the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, where he urged Colombo to take “decisive action” on accountability and reforms but stopped short of calling for a fully international accountability mechanism, despite decades of impunity.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath addressed the 60th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, where he insisted that accountability for mass atrocities would only be pursued through domestic processes, once again rejecting longstanding calls for international accountability for the Tamil genocide.

Sri Lanka’s former president and credibly accused war criminal Mahinda Rajapaksa is searching for a new residence in Colombo after parliament voted overwhelmingly to strip former heads of state of their state-funded perks, including official housing.

The second phase of excavations at the Chemmani–Sindhubathi mass grave in Jaffna has concluded, revealing at least 240 human skeletons, including the remains of children, infants, and bodies found in overlapping positions, in one of the island’s largest ever mass graves.

A former member of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) has said the paramilitary group was behind a series of murders across the North-East and Colombo, including those of journalist Atputharajah Nadarajah, attorney-at-law Maheswari, and Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation employee K. S. Raja.

US Congress members Raja Krishnamoorthi and Deborah Ross have expressed their support for an independent investigation into the Chemmani mass grave, where 240 skeletal remains have been identified. 

Posting on X, US Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, representative for Illinois's 8th Congressional District, said that "justice for the victims and the disappeared demands an independent investigation and real accountability."

 

A new report 'Killing Sri Lankan journalists: The Case of Nimalarajan Mylvaganam' co-authored by the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) and REDRESS, highlights the failures of Sri Lanka's police in investigating the 2000 murder of Tamil journalist Nimalarajan Mylvaganam. 

Nimalarajan contributed to the BBC for over six years, as well as the Tamil daily Virakesari and Sinhala weekly Ravaya.

Krishanthi Kumaraswamy was remembered at a memorial in Chemmani today.

Today marks 29 years since the Chemmani massacre of 1996, in which Sri Lankan soldiers raped and murdered Tamil schoolgirl, Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, and three of her family members that had gone looking for her.

Krishanthi Kumaraswamy was an A Level student at Chundikili High School who was kidnapped, gang raped and viciously murdered by Sri Lankan soldiers and police officers on September 7th 1996. Three of her family members who went in search of her were also brutally murdered.