JAFFNA: Police investigating an alleged mass grave on Mandaitivu, an island off the Jaffna Peninsula, told a court on Tuesday that the Sri Lankan Army had not answered their request for information about its presence on the island in 1990. Families say dozens of young Tamil men were detained by soldiers on Mandaitivu that year and never seen again. The police had asked the army for records showing whether it maintained a camp at the site named in the complaint, and for the names of officers sta

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's Department of Prisons has stopped sending inmates from three Colombo prisons to court after measles was confirmed among detainees, the department's spokesman said. No inmates from the Colombo Remand Prison, Magazine Prison or Welikada Prison were produced in court on Monday, Senaka Pallethenna, a commissioner of prisons and the department's media spokesman, said. The department has notified the courts concerned in writing, and the suspension is temporary, he sai

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka on Thursday highlighted plans to supply unmanned aerial vehicles to the Sri Lanka Navy and a new exchange programme for military personnel. Both are part of a security relationship that Tokyo has widened over the past year. The ambassador, Akio Isomata, described the initiatives at a reception the Japanese Embassy in Colombo held for the 72nd anniversary of the founding of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. Guests included Sri Lanka’s deputy defenc

JAFFNA, November 8, 2026 The funeral procession of Thambithurai Ilayakutty stopped on Sunday at Palaly Junction, where displaced landowners were protesting for the 21st consecutive week to demand that the military return their land. Ilayakutty, 83, had protested there with them. The protesters paid their respects to her body at the site. She died of old age on Saturday, November 7. For years she had told those close to her that she wanted to die in her own house in Palaly and have her funeral