Tamil residents of Keppapulavu presented a petition to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, demanding the release of lands currently under military occupation.

Eelam Tamil residents, alongside civil society organizations, gathered in Olaithoduvai, Mannar last week to oppose government-led soil sampling for a controversial mining project.

The Association for the Families of the Disappeared issued a reminder to Sri Lankan President Anura Dissanayake, urging him to take concrete actions rather than making election-time promises this week.

In a media briefing held in Vavuniya, the group emphasized the urgency of releasing Tamil political prisoners and returning Tamil-owned lands, demands which say cannot wait for electoral cycles.

Plainclothes Sri Lankan police officers arrived at the family home of exiled Tamil journalist Punniyamoorthy Sasikaran and subjected his elderly father to intense interrogation, recording his statement for more than an hour, as the harassment of Tamil media workers continued.

Sri Lanka’s president Anura Kumara Dissanayake allegedly transported bus loads of Sinhalese supporters to Jaffna yesterday, as he spoke of “uniting all Sri Lankans under one flag” to crowds at a rally in the North-East.

A group of nine Eelam Tamil refugees who had previously sought refuge in India were detained by the Sri Lankan Navy near Neduntheevu Island this week.

The group, comprising three men, three women, and three children from Trincomalee, Mannar, and Mullaitivu, had initially arrived in India via the Dhanushkodi coast having fled during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis between 2022 and 2023. They had been living in Tamil Nadu’s Mandapam camp where thousands of Eelam Tamil refugees remain.

As Tamils across the island gear up to vote in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections this week, candidates from across the array of Tamil parties have all tried to showcase their nationalist credentials to secure the Tamil vote.

The election, set to take place on November 14, has seen a surge in Tamil nominations as hundreds of individuals, some from newly formed Tamil political parties, are standing to become MPs.