Writing in Redflag this week, Tamil Refugee Council member Ben Hillier condemned the newly elected Australian Labor Party (ALP)'s immigration policy and it's handling of the Murugappan family’s immigration case. 

Hillier stated that the new Labor government could have granted permanent protection to the Murugappan family, "the Biloela family snatched from their home four years ago by Border Force and placed in the prison-like conditions of immigration detention by the Liberal government."

May 31, 1981 marked not only the burning of the Jaffna Public Library, but the beginning of a week-long rampage of violence by Sri Lankan security forces and Sinhala mobs which devastated the peninsula.

The violence and devastation was largely ignored by the island’s mainstream press, and even in Tamil Nadu reports did not reach the media for many days, as a result of the shutdown of press throughout the North and general censorship imposed by the Sri Lankan government. Notably, the office and presses of Eelanadu, a prolific Tamil daily coming out of Jaffna since 1959, were burnt to the ground by the mobs. The famous Poobalasingam Book depot was also burnt.

Sri Lanka’s Civil Aviation Authority has told airlines coming to the island to either ensure all flights arrive with the required fuel they need to leave or fill up elsewhere, as fuel shortages amidst an economic crisis wreaks havoc on the island.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed his government’s “continuing support for the people of Sri Lanka during their current economic difficulties” in a phone call with his counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe earlier today.

In Mullaitivu, Families of the Disappeared gathered for the 1,906 day of protest and to mark the death of one of their members, Mary Fatima Pushparani.

Pushparani was a native of Vadamarachchi East & former president of Jaffna District Missing Persons Association. For the past 13 years, she searched for her son after having lost another to the war. She passed away at Chavakachcheri base hospital. At least 115 demonstrators have died without knowing the truth behind their loved ones’ disappearances.

Within less than two weeks since Mullivaikkal commemorations took place on the 18 May for the hundreds of thousands of Tamil genocide victims, another Tamil mother searching for her forcibly disappeared son has passed away.

Mary Fatima Pushparani Arulanantham, an Eelam Tamil mother of Vadamarachchi East and the former president of the Jaffna District Missing Persons Association passed away never receiving justice for her son who was forcibly disappeared by the Sri Lankan state. 

^{Photograph: Gardiner Expressway, May 10, 2009}

Thirteen years ago, I was among tens of thousands in Toronto’s Tamil community who protested the war in Sri Lanka. I remember waking up on Mother’s Day that year to the horrific news that an all-night artillery barrage killed nearly 1,000 people in a single night. After weeks of candlelight vigils, letter-writing campaigns and petitioning, we felt desperate to draw the world’s attention to Sri Lanka’s escalating genocide against the Tamil people.

Later that day, thousands of us occupied the Gardiner Expressway. It would become a landmark event in the history of our community.

A Tamil lawmaker thanked Canada’s parliament over a landmark motion that recognised May 18^th as Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day and called for an internationally monitored referendum for Eelam Tamils and the diaspora to determine their political future.

S Sritharan, a parliamentarian with the Tamil National Alliance, wrote that he wanted to “wholeheartedly convey my gratitude to the House of Commons of the Canadian Parliament for acknowledging the Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka”.

In particular, he thanked Canadian MP Gary Anandasangaree for bringing forward the motion and said he hopes the move would be the “first step towards justice, and non-recurrence”.

All holidays booked to Sri Lanka up to and including June 12 2022 with the travel provider Tui have been cancelled, as the country's tourism industry suffered another blow last week.

The economic crisis in Sri Lanka has produced a medicine shortage that doctors say could result in deaths, as hospitals are unable to perform life-saving procedures. 

The healthcare system sits on the brink of collapse as Sri Lanka confronts an unprecedented economic crisis. As 80% of medical supplies in the country are imported and foreign currency reserves are depleted, essential medications are in desperately short supply.