Colombo faces loan repayments of US$2.9 billion this year alone as debts continue to grow and the economy struggles in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, reports The Hindu this week.

Sri Lanka’s current foreign debt repayments debt alone amount to 42.6% of the country’s GDP in 2019, The Hindu said, with approximately $960 million owed to India and $5 billion to China in 2018.

China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka pledged that his government and Chinese companies would look to help “rebuild” the island’s economy, as Sri Lanka’s president assured China that his regime had the spread of the coronavirus outbreak under control.

Gravestones in a cemetry belonging to Navaly American Ceylon Mission Church have been damaged by unknown persons. 

At least two Tamil women have been arrested by Sri Lankan police for alleged curfew violations, as they went to go deliver food to a group of women who were attacked by police officers earlier today.

Sri Lankan police officers forced entry into a house in Jaffna earlier today and viciously attacked family members with their guns and bats, leaving three Tamil women hospitalised. The officers also threatened to arrest people on false drug possession charges.

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Sri Lanka’s militarised response to the coronavirus pandemic “poses grave threats to human rights,” the Adayaalam Center for Policy Research (ACPR) said in their latest brief. 

Tamil women from the North-East who come to work in Sri Lanka’s special trade zones are being subjected to sexual harassment and abuse, found a report by The Diplomat, driving at least one woman to commit suicide.

Updated 1845 GMT

Sri Lankan police officers forced entry into a house in Jaffna and viciously attacked family members with their guns and bats, leaving at least three Tamil women hospitalised.

The three women were rushed to the Base Hospital in Manthikai, Jaffna earlier today, with one of the women unconscious from the violent assault. Children and elderly people living in the house were also ruthlessly assaulted, with officers threatening to arrest people on false drug possession charges.

The Australian government has been ordered to pay over $200,000 in legal fees to Tamil asylum-seeking family as they fight deportation to Sri Lanka. 

Priya and Nades Murugappan and their two Australian born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa, were initially detained in Melbourne in March 2018.

Amnesty International has called on Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to revoke the presidential pardon issued for Sergeant Sunil Rathnayake who was convicted for the Mirusuvil massacre where eight Tamil civilians were killed including three children.

A 40-year-old Tamil man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after two children were found stabbed to death at their east London home on Sunday evening, in an incident that has highlighted issues around mental health in the Tamil community.

The children were identified as 19-month-old Pavinya, who was pronounced dead at the scene, and three-year-old Nigish who died at hospital. The man, reported to be the father of the two children, is currently receiving treatment at a London hospital and remains under police guard.

The Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF) has put forward a set of eight questions to the Sri Lankan government on its coronavirus response, calling for greater transparency in how Colombo’s actions during the pandemic.

At least  248 sailors at a Sri Lankan naval base have currently tested positive for the coronavirus admitted authorities, in what has been the biggest outbreak of the virus on the island so far.