Tamil refugees returned from India languish for seven years along border village of Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 January 2019, 19:13 GMT]
Thirty-seven Tamil families that have returned from the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu in India to their native village of Maruthoadai of Naavaladi in Vavuniyaa North after three-decades of exile are struggling without gaining access to their lands located along the border of Northern Province in Vavuniyaa North. The SL Forest Department is not allowing the people to set foot into their properties at Maruthoadai since 2010 when it gazetted their village as a forest conservation area. The intention is to block resettlement of Eezham Tamils and absorb the village into the expanding Sinhala colonisation programme, the uprooted families complain. They urge human right groups as well as the community organisations of Tamils to focus on their plight.
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Tamil POW goes on dry hunger-strike amidst suffering asthma attack

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 January 2019, 23:26 GMT]
31-year-old Tamil Prisoner of War, Sivaseelan Sivapragasam, who has been waging a hunger strike at Anuradhapura prison Saturday, refused to drink water starting from Tuesday. On Wednesday morning he was subjected to medical inspection at the prison hospital. Later in the noon, he was rushed to Anuradhapura hospital in a stretcher after suffering an asthma attack, fellow Tamil prisoners said. Sivaseelan was caught in trauma after his father, the only family member to be alive outside the prison, recently passed away, according to his fellow Tamil prisoners who talked to reporters at Vavuniyaa when they came for a hearing in the afternoon.
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Speeding SL military truck claims lives of three Tamils on A9 highway

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 January 2019, 18:43 GMT]
Three Tamil passengers riding a three-wheeler including its driver were killed on the spot when a speeding truck of the occupying Sinhala military crashed into the vehicle on Tuesday afternoon. The fatal incident has taken place on the A9 highway at Iyak-kachchi, north of Elephant Pass in Ki'linochchi district. Eyewitnesses said that a group of military soldiers rushed to the spot in a pickup vehicle immediately after the accident and transported the Sinhala military driver that seemed drunk away from the locality. By the time when the SL Police came, another SLA soldier had taken his place. The SL military started to claim that the wrong driving of the auto-driver had caused the accident.
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Tamil POW, detained for 10 years, launches hunger-strike at Anuradhapura prison

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 January 2019, 20:06 GMT]
Sivaseelan Sivapragasam was 22 years when the SL military detained him on 19 May 2009 at Oamanthai in Vavuniyaa. He had lost his mother and a brother during the genocidal onslaught by the advancing SL military which directed indiscriminate artillery fire into the so-called ‘safe zone’. His father, Mr Sivapragasam, the only remaining family member outside the SL Prison who was tirelessly demanding the release of his son, also passed away on 16 December at Vaddak-kachchi in Ki'linochchi. The lone survivor of Sivapragasam family is now waging hunger-strike urging his release to at least conduct the 31st-day ritual ('Anthiraddi' rites) to his deceased father, his fellow inmates told media on Sunday.
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Sinhala monk wages anti-TNA propaganda among flood-affected Tamils

[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 January 2019, 22:10 GMT]
The Tamil people in Vanni should thank the SL military as their saviours as it protected them from the recent floods and the Tamil people should not demand its withdrawal from the North, said Sinhala extremist politician in saffron robes, Battaramulla Seelarathana thero, who was visiting Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu this weekend in an apparent propaganda move. The TNA politicians, who demand de-militarisation were flying in helicopters while the SL military was helping the flood-affected Tamils on the ground, the extremist monk told the people. Apart from the drive to promote military psyops, his visit was aimed at strengthening Sinhala settlers (not affected by the floods) who have encroached Karai-thu'raip-pattu division in Mullaiththeevu district seizing the strategic link between the North and East to wedge the contiguity of the traditional Tamil homeland permanently.
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Tamil dairy farmers face two-frontal attacks in interior Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 04 January 2019, 17:11 GMT]
Ex-paramilitary Karuna Group, which is aligned with former SL President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been gunning down the cattle belonging to dairy farmers at the pasturelands of Paalai-vaddavaan (Paalai-madu) in Paduvaan-karai, the interior northwestern part of Batticaloa district which was protected by the LTTE before 2007 from Sinhala colonisation coming from Polonnaruwa, the home district of Mr Sirisena. In the meantime, Sinhala encroacher ‘home guards’ paramilitary men have stolen eight calves within the last 20 days. The SL police are taking the side of the encroachers and demands the Tamil dairy farmers to identify the ‘thieves’ to register a complaint. The calve thefts have taken place at Mayilaththa-madu pasture land, which is located within two kilometres from the Paalai-madu tank, where the former paramilitary men who have been firing at the cows.
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SL Navy transforms another hill-top into Sinhala Buddhist temple in Moothoor East

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 January 2019, 22:56 GMT]
A small hill with an abode for Tamil deity Murukan has been slowly converted into a full-fledged Sinhala Buddhist temple during the last two years in Champoor, Moothoor East of Trincomalee district. The hill-top was absorbed into the so-called ‘high-security zone’ in 2016 for the expansion of the SL Navy's naval training base, SLNS Vidura. The transformation has taken place in all secret while Maththa'la-malai, which is facing Choodaik-kudaa (Shell Bay) of Trincomalee outside the military zone, gained focus last year. The SL Department of Archaeology seized the hill-top of Maththa'la-malai after creating controversy with the claim of finding artefacts associated with an ancient girth of a Cetiya which it claimed as existed in the ancient past at the locality.
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Occupying Colombo turns SL military-employed pre-school teachers against TNA

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 January 2019, 23:23 GMT]
The unitary state of genocidal Sri Lanka is planning to appoint Sinhala health sector workers and pre-school teachers for vacant posts at the absence of the democratically elected provincial council in the North, Tamil civil officials at the Northern Provincial Council said. In the meantime, the unitary state system has been inciting the pre-school teachers employed in the SL military-operated ‘Civil Security Division’ to protest against the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) through propagating false propaganda that the TNA was attempting to scrap their job contracts, the sources further said.
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SL Police blocks uprooted Tamils attempting to enter Keappaa-pulavu after 670 days of protest

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 January 2019, 14:46 GMT]
One hundred and thirty-eight families in Keappaa-pulavu in Mullaiththeevu, who have been staging a continuous protest for 670 days since 01 March 2017 attempted to enter their lands inside the SL military occupied zone on Monday. The protesters had sent a letter to SL President Maithiripala Sirisena and TNA Leader R. Sampanthan two days ago warning the Sinhala and the Tamil political leaders would be responsible if they were to be assaulted by the SL military while trying to enter their lands.
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