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The International Organization for Migration (IOM) closed its district office in Trincomalee town with effect from July 31. IOM sources said it has been closed its office in Trincomalee due to lack of funds and that IOM has laid off ten of its employees. However five employees have been transferred to Vavuniyaa (01) and Jaffna [...]

Sri Lanka police have received 101 complaints of abductions since January to the end of July in various parts of Sri Lanka and 93 of them are related to ransom demands, SL police spokesman Preshantha Jayakody told media in Colombo.

At least a thousand of the persons disappeared during Sri Lanka government’s war on Vanni are students below the age of eighteen and their families, mostly mothers, have begun a desperate search for their children gone missing after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at the end of the war, Education Department sources in Ki’linochchi [...]

Occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vanni has declared the villages of Mayilvaakanapuram and Kumarasaamipuram in Ki’linochchi district not allowed for resettlement as they had been reserved for SLA use, sources in Ki’linochchi said. 140 uprooted families of the two villages brought to be resettled two months back after detention in Vavuniyaa SLA camp by [...]

The re-commencement of registration of Tamils with the police and targetted search operations have created a renewed sense of insecurity and injustice amongst the larger Tamil population that is detrimental to national reconciliation, said Democratic People’s Front Leader Mano Ganesan, according to Colombo media. Ganesan has requested Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa to intervene to [...]

Leader of Democratic Peoples Front (DPF) and Convener of Civil Monitoring Commission, Mano Ganesan, has unequivocally condemned the arson attack on the Siyatha Media Network studio in Colombo on Friday morning. In a statement released Friday, Ganesan, while condemning the attack in the strongest of terms, noted that the incident had taken place in the [...]

The intestines of the family consultant nurse Saravanai Tharsika alleged killed by Sinhala doctor Priyantha Senivaratne in Veala’nai hospital, removed after post mortem examination in Jaffna Teaching Hospital and buried in Koddadi cemetery before her body was handed over to her family, were exhumed Friday in the presence of Oorkaavattu’rai magistrate and Jaffna Judicial Medical [...]

Twelve armed men clad in black uniforms forcefully entered the private
TV channel Siyatha TV office and assaulted the security guard and set
fire to the station and caused severe damage to the equipment on
Friday at 1.30 am. The station belongs to former Chairman of the Sri Lanka
Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Mr. Priyantha Kariyapperuma. Mr. Kariyapermuma was [...]

Editor of the Sunday Leader, Frederica Janz, is one of the twenty
witnesses summoned to give evidence before the Sri Lankan High Court Trial-At-Bar
which is to begin on September 27 into the ‘white flag’ case against
former commander of the Sri Lanka Army Sarath Fonseka. Major General Shavendra Silva and Sri
Lanka’s Representative to the UN in Geneva [...]

The Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka ruled against the Tele Communication Commission injunction on ‘Shakthi Television’, the Tamil channel of MTV (Pvt) of Maharajah Organization, to continue telecast in Jaffna peninsula from 1 January 2010, in favour of a petition filed by Shakthi, sources in Jaffna said. MTV (Pvt) is a leading concern that [...]

The Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka ruled against the Tele Communication Commission injunction on ‘Shakthi Television’, the Tamil channel of MTV (Pvt) of Maharajah Organization, to continue telecast in Jaffna peninsula from 1 January 2010, in favour of a petition filed by Shakthi, sources in Jaffna said. MTV (Pvt) is a leading concern that [...]

“While the West is hoodwinking Tamils with war crimes investigations, what takes place in the island in full swing with the abetment of those who abetted the war are development crimes, demographic crimes and cultural crimes to complete genocide. The balance tilted by the international community has now placed Eezham Tamils to face several armies: [...]

The Chief Incumbent of Malwatte Chapter, Most Venerable Thippaduwaave Sri Sumangala thera, accompanied by Buddhist priests visited Vanni Wednesday where he worshiped in the Buddhist temples newly erected by occupying Sri Lanka Army (SLA), sources in Vanni said. Thursday, the Chief Incumbent participated in an event in Nelliyadi Maththiya Makaa Viththiyaalayam in Vadamaraadchi and distributed [...]

British newspapers Sun and Daily Mail, represented by their Counsel at the Royal Court of Justice in London on Thursday, apologised sincerely and unreservedly for untrue and highly defamatory allegations against Parameswaran Subramanyam, who was on a 23-day hunger strike April, last year, demanding international community to stop Colombo’s war on Tamils. The newspapers also [...]

British newspapers Sun and Daily Mail, represented by their Counsel at the Royal Court of Justice in London on Thursday, apologised sincerely and unreservedly for untrue and highly defamatory allegations against Parameswaran Subramanyam, who was on a 23-day hunger strike April, last year, demanding international community to stop Colombo’s war on Tamils. The newspapers also [...]

The Chennai-based, state-run Indian Bank is planning to open a branch in Jaffna, and to facilitate an Indian government loan to Sri Lanka of US$ 200 million for the rehabilitation of internally displaced Tamils, media reports said. “Talks [with Sri Lanka] are in an advanced stage at the moment,” chairman and managing director Mr. TM [...]

Three of twenty-nine dengue patients admitted in Mannaar general
hospital have died in July. Meanwhile, the Department of Health in Mannaar has launched a campaign
against the spread of dengue.

The body of the family consultant nurse Saravanai Tharsika allegedly killed by Sinhala doctor Priyantha Seniviratne in Veala’nai government hospital in the islets of Jaffna 10 July and buried in Kaithadi Hindu crematorium grounds was exhumed Wednesday in the presence of Oorkaavattu’rai magistrate under the direction of Judicial Medical Officer, sources in Jaffna said.

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers interrogated the residents of Kavuthaarimunai in Poonakari in Ki’linochchi Friday immediately after a delegation of Sinhala Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) had visited them, Socialist Youth Association (SYA), a front organization of the JVP, claimed in a media statement. The delegation met the resettled people to learn first hand about [...]

Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) is engaged in constructing many new bases along the coast in the districts of Ampaa’rai and Batticaloa in Eastern Province disregarding strong protests of local Tamil and Muslim people, sources in Batticaloa. Oluvil Mosque president Abubucker Lebbai Ismail expressed concern that new SLN bases in heavily populated places where there were [...]

A potsherd inscription in Tamil Brahmi found some times back in an archaeological excavation by a German team at Tissamaharama in the Hambantota district of the Southern Province of Sri Lanka can be interpreted as meaning an equipment to measure, and thus evidences the presence of ordinary Tamil speaking people in the population of that [...]

Sri Lanka Justice Ministry has decided to appoint Jayawardne, a Sinhala magistrate to Mullaiththeevu magistrate court in Vanni which had begun to function after a period of nearly 20 years, sources in Mullaiththeevu said.

Chaavakachcheari magistrate A. M. Mohamed Riyal expressed strong discontent over police noncooperation Monday when Jaffna police authorities failed to submit the statement of the suspect, Allexander Soosaimuthu alias Charles, Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) Thenmaraadchi organizer and its candidate in the last general election, in the killing of student Kapilnath in Chaavakachcheari, sources in Jaffna [...]

A young couple, recently resettled in Ki’linochchi district in Vanni, attempted to kill themselves Sunday. The neighbours rushed them to Ki’linochchi government hospital where the husband died and the wife, transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital, is admitted in the Intensive Care Unit. The couple had lost all four of their children during the war in [...]

Atleast six
hundred soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) conducted a house to house
search in Onththachchimadam in
Batticaloa district from Sunday morning for several hours. Tension prevailed among residents of the village when the
soldiers surrounded the village without allowing any one to leave
their houses, sources in Batticaloa said.

Vavuniyaa Traders’ Association Tuesday staged a general shut down
protesting against inaction by Vavuniyaa Police to
launch an inquiry into the alleged abduction of a wealthy Tamil
businessman from the area few days ago. He was later released after paying the demanded ransom of six hundred thousand rupees to an
unidentified gang, sources said.

Sri Lanka government has suspended the dry food relief supplied under World Food Programme to the recently resettled people in the outskirts of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Vazhalaay near Achchuveali, according to Divisional Secretariat officials who had suspended the supply of dry food rations on instructions from Sri Lanka [...]

Northern Provincial Council (NPC) is alleged of cutting funds allocated to the local government bodies in Vanni in great measures while these institutions are not in a position to collect revenue from people who had been uprooted and just resettled in Vanni, sources in Vanni said. It is further accused that NPC officials spend the [...]

United National Party (UNP) Jaffna district parliamentarian Ms. Vijyakala Maheswaran Monday
requested Sri Lanka government to launch an inquiry into the attack on Tamil
prisoners in Colombo remand prison on Saturday. The Tamil prisoners
were attacked when they complained to the prison authorities that they were
being detained in overcrowded cells in the prison, sources in Colombo said.

Two undergrads, one of Jaffna University and the other of Peredeniya University riding on a motorcycle collided with another vehicle Sunday night in Jaffna at Kantharmadam and died on the spot, sources in Jaffna said. The victims riding without helmets had speeded up to escape traffic police chasing them and had collided with an oncoming [...]

Plans to move Northern Provincial Council (NPC) and its offices now functioning in Trincomalee to Ki’linochchi by Northern Province Governor Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Sri Lanka government have been indefinitely postponed due to opposed opinion of the NPC officials who maintain that Ki’linochchi has not returned to normalcy and there are no basic [...]

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has reintroduced checking of all vehicles
passing through the main road in Batticaloa to Vaazhaichcheanai,
Kalmunai and Verukal areas. This checking of civilians causes untold hardships
during emergency travelling, residents express concern. Despite these checking by police and SLA, paramilitary gangs continue to rob and involve in other crimes, they added.

International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO) sources say that
their work is being hampered due to the interference by the Sri Lanka
Army (SLA). INGOs have been instructed by the SLA not to use stickers. INGOs use these stickers
to identify their institutions to the SLA and other armed groups, sources in Batticaloa said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron will Monday be handed a memorandum on behalf of UK’s Tamil community urging his government to support an international probe into war crimes in Sri Lanka, and to pressure the Colombo government to resettle in their homes tens of thousands of Tamils still languishing in refugee camps, and allow international [...]

In an unprecedented legal move, three diaspora Tamil organisations have decided on Friday to file a case against Germany in the European Court of Human Rights. The Switzerland Council of Eezham Tamils (SCET), the Norwegian Council of Eezham Tamils (NCET) and the US based NGO, Tamil Against Genocide (TAG), are to submit an application to [...]

In an unprecedented legal move, three diaspora Tamil organisations have decided on Friday to file a case against Germany in the European Court of Human Rights. The Switzerland Council of Eezham Tamils (SCET), the Norwegian Council of Eezham Tamils (NCET) and the US based NGO, Tamil Against Genocide (TAG), are to submit an application to [...]

The Special Task Force (STF) in Batticaloa district, after asking the Kannaipuram Tamil villagers in Vellave’li DS division to vacate their lands to construct a Murugan Temple, has reportedly started unloading bricks, cements and sand for the construction of a Buddhist vihare.

Five thousand houses constructed in Mu’ruka’ndi area in Ki’linochchi district including Skanthapuram along A9 road are to be settled in August with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) senior and junior officials and their families permanently while the uprooted civilians brought to be resettled in Skanthapuram are left in a school building by Sri Lanka government officials, [...]

Five thousand houses constructed in Mu’ruka’ndi area in Ki’linochchi district including Skanthapuram along A9 road are to be settled in August with Sri Lanka Army (SLA) senior and junior officials and their families permanently while the uprooted civilians brought to be resettled in Skanthapuram are left in a school building by Sri Lanka government officials, [...]

Fishermen in Nedunththeevu (Delft) in the islets of Jaffna going fishing Friday morning found a naked male body washed ashore and informed Nedunththeevu police. The body covered with injuries is suspected to be one of the Tamil Nadu fishermen killed by Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) on Indian seas some days ago, police sources said. Some [...]

An official of Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office said that the first stage of preliminary investigation to find out the fate of persons who had disappeared after leaving Liberation Tigers controlled area in Vanni at the end of the war, is in the offing. Representatives of Associations related to finding persons disappeared after arrest [...]

Some International and Local Non-government organizations (NGOs) serving in Vanni consider leaving Vanni as Sri Lanka government’s restrictions to stay and serve in Vanni are tightened. Permission from President’s Task Force (PTF), headed by SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother and Sri Lanka Minister, Basil Rajapaksa for NGOs has been a prerequisite to assist the war [...]

Unidentified persons who arrived in a white van pulled out a Tamil journalist from a passenger vehicle travelling along Mannaar-Thalaimannaar road Thursday night around 8.30 and attacked him, according to a complaint lodged with the Mannaar Police.

World Bank Vice President for South Asia Isabel Guerrero who ended a three-day visit to Sri Lanka pledging support to Sri Lanka’s transition to a middle income country at peace, has emphasized that reconciliation is a pre-requisite for development in Sri Lanka. During her visit to Sri Lanka, Guerrero called on Sri Lanka’s President [...]

Most of the resettled families having lost their earning male members either killed, disappeared or detained in prison after arrest or surrender, their children are forced to drop out from school in order to earn a living for the family, an education officer in Vanni said. The number of children above fifteen in the resettled [...]

Speaking at the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA) convention during the US Independence day weekend, Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law, said that Sri Lanka is a violator of the Apartheid Convention, and that Tamils across the world should, without delay, intensify a divestment and disinvestment campaign against Sri Lanka “in [...]

Speaking at the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA) convention during the US Independence day weekend, Professor Boyle, an expert in International Law, said that Sri Lanka is a violator of the Apartheid Convention, and that Tamils across the world should, without delay, intensify a divestment and disinvestment campaign against Sri Lanka “in [...]

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers continue to plunder the valuable properties abandoned by the uprooted residents of the coastal area from Naakarkoayil to Chu’ndikku’lam in Vadmaraadchi East, a team of officials which had visited the area recently said. Only Naakarkoayil and its surroundings had been affected by war while the people and their properties in [...]

2,307 uprooted civilians of 715 families staying in Raamaavil camp in Kodikaamam in Thenmaraadchi complain of starvation as they are given only rice, that too of a very poor quality, as dry food relief ration. They are forced to sell the poor quality rice as cattle fodder and buy rice for consumption, they further said. [...]

Amid several allegations that members of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and other state security forces have been engaged in smuggling ganja, a locally made drug, opium and other prohibited narcotics items to the Northern Province for sale, the Sri Lanka Police Wednesday arrested a soldier of the SLA at Anuradhapura while seated in [...]

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in its media report 21 July said that it is alarmed by threats made against the safety of the family of senior Sri Lankan journalist Gamini Pushpakumara. “We call upon the Sri Lankan police and security agencies to take immediate measures to investigate the source of the threats and to [...]

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in its media report 21 July said that it is alarmed by threats made against the safety of the family of senior Sri Lankan journalist Gamini Pushpakumara. “We call upon the Sri Lankan police and security agencies to take immediate measures to investigate the source of the threats and to [...]

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has appealed for assistance from the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to help influence the Sri Lankan government to speed up the resettlement of the thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and to develop the war ravaged north and east provinces, Sinhala daily Lakbima reported Thursday. According to [...]

Young women recently released from Vavuniyaa internment camps and resettled in Mannar district are living in fear of their life, and are living are being sexually abused by members of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying the Mannar area, sources in Mannar said.. Parents of the women undergoing harassment are unable to make official complaints [...]

The construction of a fishing jetty and a cooler facility for Sinhalese fishermen from South that was begun in Naachchikkudaa coast in Mannaar district with the support Sri Lanka government top officials was suspended as the local fishermen organizations had raised their strong protest, sources in Mannaar said. The above constructions were begun in the [...]

Armed men entered Monday night the fuel station in Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi, located in front of Nelliayadi Sri Lanka police station, near Sri Lanka Army (SLA) civil administration office and the office of Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a constituent of the ruling UPFA government, and robbed cash around half a million rupees breaking open [...]

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Ki’linochchi are forcing the resettled civilians in Selvaanakar Eight Houses Scheme to vacate their houses claiming that their houses are built on private land, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Vanni parliamentarian Sritharan said. He added that SLA soldiers entering the Scheme during nights in the last few days have been [...]

Four democratically-elected Country Councils (CCs) of Eezham Tamils in Europe announced Tuesday the signing of a formal “Collaboration Agreement” with Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, to form a co-operative relationship to pursue criminal and civil litigation against Sri Lanka officials complicit in war-crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in the courts [...]

Three democratically-elected Country Councils (CCs) in Europe announced Tuesday the signing of a formal “Collaboration Agreement” with Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group, to form a co-operative relationship to pursue criminal and civil litigation against Sri Lanka officials complicit in war-crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in the courts of European Community member [...]

Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake has made an appeal to the Supreme Court to immediately dismiss the petition submitted by Sri Lanka’s defeated opposition Presidential candidate General Sarath Fonseka who has challenged the presidency of incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa, State owned Dinamina newspaper said in a report Wednesday. Fonseka is currently under military custody. [...]