Families of Maaveerar - or Great Heroes - were honoured at an event in Vavuniya Municipal Cultural Hall today. 

The mother of three fallen cadres lit the sacrificial lamp before flowers were laid in front of portraits of Tamil fighters who died in the armed conflict. 

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) commemorated fallen Tamil fighters in Mannar to mark Maaveerar Remembrance week. 

Tens of thousands of men and women sacrificed their lives in the struggle for Tamil Eelam. But not every single one of them was ethnically Tamil.

In this brief sample, we publish the names and details of fighters with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who joined not simply due to their ethnicity or religion, but to liberate the North-East from Sri Lankan oppression. 

Photograph: Koppay Thuyilum Illam, Jaffna, before its destruction by the Sri Lankan Army

As the Tamil nation prepares to mark Maaveerar Naal - or Great Heroes’ Day - on November 27, Tamils in the North-East will gather at Thuyilum Illams across the homeland to remember the Tamil fighters that sacrificed their lives for liberation.  

Officials and residents in Batticaloa are raising alarm over what they say is a deepening pattern of unilateral encroachments by the Sri Lankan Department of Archaeology into Tamil areas, following the sudden installation of disputed signboards across the district this week.

Officials of the Valikamam Southwest and North Divisional Councils lit lamps and held memorial observances in a tribute to fallen Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters this week, as Tamils across the North-East prepare to mark Maaveerar Naal – or Great Heroes’ Day. 

Sri Lankan foreign minister Vijitha Herath announced that he met Canada’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Isabelle Catherine Martin, where he pressed Ottawa to clamp down on Tamil political expression and activities linked to Tamil self-determination.

The City of Brampton marked Tamil Eelam National Flag Day on 21 November with a community flag-raising ceremony at Ken Whillans Square, recognising “the collective identity of the Eelam Tamil nation” and its “ongoing resistance to genocide”.

A memorial hall dedicated to 529 fallen Tamil fighters was unveiled in Puthukkudiyirippu, Mullaitivu, on November 22. 

The names of 529 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres who were from Mullaitivu were displayed throughout the hall