Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor

A Sri Lankan President Acknowledges Security Forces' Crimes — but Only Some

A Sri Lankan President Acknowledges Security Forces' Crimes — but Only Some

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — For decades, allegations that Sri Lanka's security forces were implicated in murder, abduction, and torture were, in the country's mainstream politics, largely dismissed as a Tamil grievance. Raised by victims in the north and east and by the families of the disappeared, they found little sympathy within the Sinhala-majority political establishment that has governed the country since independence. This week, the man who now leads that establishment — and serves as commander
June 2026
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
‘Why Have a Justice Minister Without Justice?’ Protesters Confront Minister at Chemmani

‘Why Have a Justice Minister Without Justice?’ Protesters Confront Minister at Chemmani

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Relatives of people who disappeared during Sri Lanka’s civil war staged a protest on Friday outside the Chemmani mass grave site, demanding an international investigation and rejecting what they described as inadequate domestic efforts to uncover the truth. The demonstration coincided with a visit by Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara and officials from the Office on Missing Persons to the excavation site at the Siththupathi Hindu cemetery in Jaffna, where forensic teams
June 2026 Monitor Memo
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
The Meccan Shawl: S.L.M. Hanifa’s Stories Reach the World as Jaffna Monitor Enters Publishing

The Meccan Shawl: S.L.M. Hanifa’s Stories Reach the World as Jaffna Monitor Enters Publishing

After more than six decades of writing about life in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, S.L.M. Hanifa’s stories are reaching an English-speaking audience around the world. The Meccan Shawl, a collection of fifteen of his short stories translated from Tamil into English, will be launched on Sunday, June 14, at 4:00 p.m. at the Olympic Auditorium Hall on Independence Avenue in Colombo 7. The book is jointly published by Jaffna Monitor and Ghazal Publications. For Jaffna Monitor, it marks a new ventur
June 2026 Monitor Memo
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
THE EASTER SUNDAY FILES Part One: What the FBI Found

THE EASTER SUNDAY FILES Part One: What the FBI Found

Colombo — More than seven years after eight suicide bombers tore through three churches and three hotels, killing more than 260 people, Sri Lanka is still arguing about what really happened on Easter Sunday. The country’s search for answers has produced thousands of pages of testimony, evidence, and analysis spread across seven major investigations. Yet those inquiries did not always pursue the same questions, nor did they always reach the same conclusions. The debate has now burst back into p
JM Exclusive June 2026
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
Deepthi Attygalle, Pioneer of Sri Lankan Anaesthesia, Dies at 86
Deepthi Attygalle

Deepthi Attygalle, Pioneer of Sri Lankan Anaesthesia, Dies at 86

Deepthi Attygalle, the Sri Lankan anaesthesiologist whose work on magnesium sulphate became an important reference point in the treatment of severe tetanus, died on June 1, 2026. She was 86. For much of the twentieth century, severe tetanus was managed by heavily sedating patients and supporting them on mechanical ventilators for weeks at a time, a regimen that consumed intensive-care resources often unavailable in many developing countries. At the General Hospital in Colombo, Dr. Attygalle and
May 2026 Obituary
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
Inside Aravinda de Silva’s Home: Testimonies Reveal Kapila Chandrasena’s Final Night

Inside Aravinda de Silva’s Home: Testimonies Reveal Kapila Chandrasena’s Final Night

At around 11:30 on the night of May 7, Kapila Chandrasena telephoned his domestic worker at his Barnes Place home in Colombo. He gave her a list: nightclothes, medicines, and two pairs of spectacles. Then he called again and added a fourth item — a blue cloth belt he kept beneath his sarong and used for exercise. He told her to pack everything into a bag and have it ready. Two men arrived by vehicle and took it away. The following morning, at approximately 7:35 a.m., that same room at the Pedri
JM Exclusive May 2026
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
As Vietnam's Leader Visits Colombo, Sri Lanka Studies the Lessons of a Marxist Economic Success

As Vietnam's Leader Visits Colombo, Sri Lanka Studies the Lessons of a Marxist Economic Success

COLOMBO — Vietnam’s President and Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm is set to arrive in Sri Lanka today for a two-day state visit that officials in both countries describe as the most consequential diplomatic engagement between Hanoi and Colombo since formal ties were established more than five decades ago — a visit freighted with economic ambition, ideological affinity and the careful optimism of two nations seeking to build something more durable than goodwill. His motorcade from Banda
JM Exclusive May 2026
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor
Tamil Families Displaced Since 1990 Vow Weekly Protests Until Military-Held Lands Are Returned
A banner at the protest site read: “Even after 36 years, must our lives still remain those of refugees?”

Tamil Families Displaced Since 1990 Vow Weekly Protests Until Military-Held Lands Are Returned

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Holding faded land deeds — some preserved for more than three decades as the last legal proof of ownership — displaced Tamil residents of Valikamam North gathered Friday outside the gates of the military’s Commando bungalow in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Peninsula, demanding the return of ancestral lands they have been barred from entering since their forced displacement in June 1990. The demonstration, organized by landowners and their families, marked the start of what participants
April 2026 Cover Story
Jaffna Monitor

Jaffna Monitor