^{File photograph: Ben Emmerson in Sri Lanka last year (Sunday Times)}

 Sri Lanka’s progress towards reform has “ground to a virtual halt” with Tamils on the island “stigmatised and disenfranchised”, concludes a United Nations report on the country’s human rights record.

The report by the former Special Rapporteur on countering terrorism Ben Emmerson, says that “none of the measures so far adopted to fulfil Sri Lanka’s transitional justice commitments are adequate to ensure real progress”.

Today we mark thirty-five years since the horrors of the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983, when Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs backed by the then UNP government and state forces.

Armed with electoral rolls, Sinhala mobs targeted Tamil homes and businesses, looting and ransacking property. Driven from their homes, particularly in Colombo, over 3000 Tamils were massacred, whilst thousands more were effectively deported by the state to the North-East.

Eye witness reports described mobs chasing Tamils down the street with knives and setting them alight alive. Many hundreds of women were raped. Tamil political prisoners locked up in Welikada jail, deep within the island's south, were also targeted as prison guards allowed Sinhala inmates to slaughter them.

The Tamil diaspora across the world held a series of rallies earlier this month, in solidarity with families of the disappeared in the North-East who have been protesting for over 500 days.

Hundreds attended protests in their respective cities and supported the call for international pressure onto the Sri Lankan government to meet the families’ demands.

Hundreds of new photographs from inside Mullivaikkal in 2009, where tens of thousands of Tamils were slaughtered in a Sri Lankan military offensive, have been released by TamilNet this week.

The photographs, taken from inside the infamous No Fire Zones, show the aftermath of Sri Lankan military shelling.

By April 2009, Valaignarmadam had been hit by shells several times. Nestled just hundreds of metres away from Nandikadal lagoon, this small, normally serene town on the coast, was now the site of unbelievable suffering. The preceding weeks and months had seen the town’s church, a makeshift hospital, and even people queuing for handouts of food hit by Sri Lankan artillery, rockets and cluster bombs.

It was in this carnage that Mariyathas was with his mother.

An independent collective of Tamil-Canadian activists organized a rally in Toronto on Saturday, June 30^th, 2018 in solidarity with Tamil Families of the Disappeared who were reaching 500 days of continuous roadside protests across the North-East of Sri Lanka. This rally kicked off a series of international rallies in London, Zurich, New York, Berlin, Vancouver, Belfast and Sydney the same week. Hundreds attended protests in their respective cities and supported the call for international pressure onto the Sri Lankan government to meet the Families’ demands.

^{Cover art by Sagi Thilipkumar}

On midnight 31^st May 1981, the Jaffna Public Library, famous for being the crucible of Tamil literature and heritage, was set ablaze by Sri Lankan security forces and state-sponsored mobs.

Over 95,000 unique and irreplaceable Tamil palm leaves (ola), manuscripts, parchments, books, magazines and newspapers, housed within an impressive building inspired by ancient Dravidian architecture, were destroyed during the burning. Some texts that were kept in the library, such as the Yalpanam Vaipavama (a history of Jaffna), were literally irreplaceable, being the only copies in existence. It was one of the largest libraries in Asia.

^{NPC member Ravikaran scatters flowers at Nandikadal lagoon at sunrise}

Nine years ago, the Eelam Tamil nation faced the largest massacre of its people by Sri Lankan state forces across the decades of genocide. May 18 has come to be marked as 'Tamil Genocide Day' by Eelam Tamils across the North-East and around the world. Today, we at the Tamil Guardian stand with the Tamil people in remembering the tens of thousands massacred during the final stages of the armed conflict and reiterate the Tamil people's demand for justice. 

The leader of the British opposition Jeremy Corbyn committed to including fundamental Tamil issues in any future election manifesto whilst speaking at a Tamil genocide memorial event, organised by Tamils for Labour.

The remembrance event, which took place on Wednesday at the Houses of Parliament,  was chaired by Sen Kandiah of Tamils for Labour and Siobhain McDonagh MP.

Speaking at the Mullivaikkal massacre remembrance event Mr Corbyn said,

^{Photograph: In this image released by the military, a Tamil man waves a white cloth in the air as he is surrounded by Sri Lankan soldiers in Mullivaikkal on May 17th 2009.}

Marking 9 years since the Sri Lankan military onslaught that massacred tens of thousands of Tamils, we revisit the final days leading up to the 18^th of May 2009 – a date remembered around the world as ‘Tamil Genocide Day’.  The total number of Tamil civilians killed during the final months is widely contested. After providing an initial death toll of 40,000, the UN found evidence suggesting that 70,000 were killed. Local census records indicate that at least 146,679 people are unaccounted for and presumed to have been killed during the Sri Lankan military offensive.