[World Socialist]

Amid police and military threats, about 200 mothers, wives and other relatives of disappeared persons held a protest on December 10 in Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, to demand information about their loved ones.

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[BBC]

A human rights group has called on Sri Lanka’s government to investigate the disappearance of two activists in the northern city of Jaffna.

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[Journal of Foreign Relations]

Led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, post-war Sri Lanka is a sad place. In May of 2009, the Sri Lankan government achieved a resounding military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[Al Jazeera]

Two years after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, many minority Tamils in the north say the military retains too strong a hold over their daily lives.

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[Reuters Canada]

“Everyone knows certain sections of the military and the political groups operating in Jaffna are behind these (violations),” Keerthi Thennakoon, executive director of the Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE), told Reuters.

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[AFP]

Sri Lanka’s main minority Tamil political group on Friday accused army troops of assaulting its lawmakers and breaking up a party meeting on the northern peninsula of Jaffna.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said troops stormed their venue on Thursday evening and attacked members of parliament and party supporters who were discussing local elections next month.

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[Reuters]

Legislators of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which backed the now defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, said supporters were chased away at a meeting in the main town of Jaffna by the military at the start of the first election campaign for 52 local bodies in northern district.

The July 23 polls are the first local government elections in the former war zone in 26 years due to a three-decade war.

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[International Committee of the Red Cross]

A ferry flying the flag of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) left Putumattalan today for Trincomalee with over 400 passengers on board, including patients and accompanying family members. “The ICRC was able to take action because both parties granted safe passage to our ship and gave us their active support,” said Paul Castella, head of the ICRC delegation in Colombo. Civil and military authorities in Putumattalan, Trincomalee and Jaffna as well as local people were also instrumental in ensuring that the wounded and sick were brought to hospital rapidly. Sri Lanka Red Cross Society volunteers participated in the operation by helping to disembark and transfer the patients.

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[UCAN]

The Catholic bishop of war-torn Jaffna diocese on the northern tip of Sri Lanka has joined 300 Christian and Hindu hunger strikers urging action to protect civilians caught in the ethnic conflict. Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam also appealed separately to the country’s president and to Tamil rebels for the safety of people trapped in the combat zone. A statement the diocese’s justice and peace commission released on Jan. 29 said more than 400 civilians had been killed and more than 1,400 injured there during the preceding 10 days.

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[ UN News Centre ]

Three United Nations agencies are offering relief to tens of thousands of Sri Lankans who have been displaced from their homes after floods struck at least five districts in the north of the island nation this week. Aid agencies held a coordination meeting in the town of Jaffna today to plan their response to the floods, which follow several days of heavy rains, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is coordinating the distribution of non-food relief items and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is providing dry rations at the request of local authorities. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is assisting with water and sanitation services.

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