“We’re watching you,” warns Amnesty International in a video to Gotabaya Rajapaksa and other leaders around the world, who are using the coronavirus outbreak to crack down on civil liberties.

“Leaders who threaten human rights are using a pandemic to expand and abuse their powers instead of focusing on helping doctors and nurses," said the video. "To those leaders: we’re watching you.”

Commenting on the president’s recent pardon of Sunil Rathnayake, a Sri Lankan soldier, the rights group said that “releasing war criminals won’t solve a health crisis.”

Samagi Jana Balavegaya leader, Sajith Premadasa, highlighted the government’s failure to adequately provide relief and insisted “the government relief is not reaching people properly since the relief program is through the local government political leadership.”

Premadasa called on the government to implement a mechanism to provide relief to people affected by the military-enforced lockdown, through state officials including village officials, in a statement made yesterday.

Kodikamam police in Jaffna arrested local councillors providing voluntary relief packages to vulnerable villagers of Chavakachcheri, that have been struggling with the pressures of the military-enforced curfew.

Local councillors and volunteers have been scrutinised and often arrested in the past weeks for aiding the vulnerable people affected by the lockdown, despite having curfew passes.

The current situation in Sri Lanka underlines why an international approach is often the only way of ensuring that perpetrators of war crimes are held accountable for their misconduct, writes Graham Newsome in International Policy Digest.

<p>Moody, a global rating agency, has placed Sri Lanka on a list of countries which may have their rating decreased if their economic situation worsens meaning that Sri Lanka may lose its B2 rating and be seen as a greater risk for investors.</p> <p>This statement follows calls from Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's President, and&nbsp;Ranil Wickremesinghe, former Prime Minister, call for an easing of the lockdown.</p>

Hundreds of villagers across the district of Vavuniya found to be living in very poor housing conditions in the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, are on the verge of dying from starvation as the government continues to neglect on providing support to these vulnerable villagers.

With the nationwide military-headed lockdown in place, villagers - of which many are labourers - have become particularly vulnerable and struggling to even have afford one meal a day, due to the lack of income.

Humanitarian organisations have teamed up with a children’s author to create a storybook on how to stay safe from the coronavirus in Tamil, as part of a global initiative to provide accessible information in different languages around the world.

“My Hero Is You,” a new illustrated book by Helen Patuck, was project developed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings (IASC MHPSS RG) with support from the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Save the Children.

The father of another disappeared Tamil teenager has died, more than a decade after his son was forcibly disappeared, and still with no answers as to his whereabouts.

Ponniah Nagarasa, a father from Pudukkudiyiruppu area, passed away yesterday.

The Australian Federal Court has ruled in favour of the Tamil asylum-seeking Biloela family stating that two-year-old Tharunicaa was not “afforded procedural fairness” in making her application - a decision that prevents the family from being deported until the process is resolved.

Responding to the court’s decision a spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs stated;

Former Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian M A Sumanthiran warned that a military enforced curfew had left people in the North-East “near starvation”, whilst Sri Lankan government bodies have refused to release emergency funds in the region.