The people from the village of Kanchuraimoddai in Vavuniya North, staged a protest on Monday calling for the “atrocious” land grab by the Sri Lanka forest department to be addressed.

The people who were displaced during the 1980’s and 90’s due to the war and ended up in places like India, have now returned to being denied access to their land. They cleaned and set up temporary bins on the land their parents used to live on.

The families of the disappeared in Mullaitivu have asked the international community to “urgently come forward and help investigate the Sinhala chauvinist government’s genocide by establishing a special tribunal” and to take the government to the International Criminal Court to seek justice.

Following a denial of responsibility for the Easter Sunday attack, Former Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, claimed that the Easter Sunday attack, which killed over 250 people, was planned to disrupt his heavy-handed war on drugs.

Pro-government paramilitary leader Karuna Amman caused controversy in the Sinhala south this week, after he boasted of killing thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers as part of the LTTE’s capture of Elephant Pass in 2000, before he defected and joined the Sri Lankan state.

Addressing a political rally in the East, Karuna claimed to have killed “2000 to 3,000 Sri Lankan Army personnel in one night at Elephant Pass”.

In an open letter to Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister, and current Finance Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, the former Finance Minister, defends the conduct of Sri Lanka’s Central Bank officials from what he describes as a “tantrum” from Sri Lanka’s President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The funeral of a Tamil man who was shot dead by the Sri Lankan army took place in Jaffna yesterday, as Sri Lankan security forces took out a court order banning all protests from taking place in the region.

Attempted phishing attacks aimed at journalists has led to Colombo-based website Groundviews shutting down a WhatsApp group earlier this month, over fears of cyber attacks.

According to Sanjana Hottutuwa, founding editor of Groundviews the phishing attempt stemmed from a message forwarded to someone outside of the WhatsApp group which was then traced back to the group. 

Hottutuwa informed Groundviews WhatsApp group members: 

Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, retired Major General Muhammad Saad Khattak, told a private television station that Pakistan had warned Sri Lanka of the Easter Sunday attacks, which claimed over 250 lives, but the Sri Lankan government failed to take follow up action.

This follows statements from the former Sri Lankan President, Maithripala Sirisena, who denied responsibility for the attack. Sirisena claimed that he had not received prior warning of the attack and could not be held responsible.

Sri Lankan troops sparked widespread condemnation after they were pictured inside the historic Nainativu Nagapooshani Amman Temple with their boots on, breaking centuries of temple rules and tradition, whilst hundreds of devotees were refused entry into the temple grounds.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Sri Lankan authorities should immediately return the seized laptop of journalist Dharisha Bastians and spoke out against what it termed a “intimidation campaign”.

“CPJ strongly objects to the seizure of journalist Dharisha Bastians’ laptop and is concerned it could further endanger her sources,” said Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ’s senior Asia researcher.