The Sri Lankan government announced the opening of two new detention centres to house foreign asylum seekers, after it faced criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for forcibly deporting refugees to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Sri Lankan immigration officials announced the two new centres, in Boosa and Negombo, stating the present centre in Mirihana, Colombo was inadequate to deal with the growing number of Pakistani and Afghan nationals seeking refugee status.

Around 1,500 foreigners are thought to be seeking refuge in Sri Lanka, with a reported 60 Pakistanis being held in Boosa and a similar number of Afghan nationals in Negombo.

The United States has given $517,000 to support the construction of Poonakari hospital in the Kilinochchi district, as part of a program to support the Northern Provincial Council.

The hospital, which was opened on the 27th of August, is one of nine different hospitals that have received US$3.8 million in assistance from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The United National Party’s Colombo district MP Ravi Karunanayaka has threatened to cross over and join the government, if Hambantota district MP Sajith Premadasa is appointed as the deputy leader of the party.

ColomboPage reported Karunanayaka as opposing Premadasa’s proposed appointment to the post, which has caused internal disputes within the opposition party.

Karunanayaka reportedly voiced his warning to UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe, who is looking to rebuild the UNP, amid earlier defections from their members to the governing party. 

The Sri Lankan government announced that rice millers who hide stock face ‘stern action’ as it set a deadline for all vendors to submit details of their stock.

Private mills and stores will be raided after the September 15th deadline to search for hidden stocks, with the government warning those traders who they claim are trying to inflate rice prices.

The government earlier set prices for rice, with the Consumer Affairs Authority having so far raided 400 vendors who had sold goods at higher than the set limit.

Meanwhile Sri Lanka is set to import some 100,000 tons of rice from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam, with Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry forecasting that 15 per cent of the paddy harvest will be lost this year due to drought.

A Sri Lankan army soldier was apprehended by locals, after he entered a house in Jaffna's coastal suburb of Kurunagar on Wednesday night, reports

Prayers organised for those displaced in Valikaamam North were called off this week after organisers received threats from military personnel, warning them there would be "consequences" if they went ahead with the prayers, Uthayan reports.

The prayers had been organised by the Poonthalir Women's Forum at the Sunnaakam Sabapathipillai Welfare Centre to pray for the resettlement of those displaced in the region.

Hundreds of Tamils were blocked from delivering a petition in Vavuniya on Saturday, marking the International Day of the Disappeared.

Relatives of disappeared from across the Northeast attended an event at Vavuniya Urban Council, before a protest march towards the Government Agent offices at Vavuniya Kachcheri but police stopped the protestors from proceeding, saying that they did not have permission, sources at the scene told the Tamil Guardian.

Buddhist communities in Sri Lanka and Myanmar “are being swept up by a rising tide of extremist sentiment against other groups,” said the United Nations Secretary General.

See full statement here.

Speaking at the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC) forum on Friday, Ban-ki Moon said he was “alarmed by the rising level of attacks in Sri Lanka against religious minorities.”