Tamils commemorating the loved ones they lost, or who were ‘disappeared’, during the civil war that ended 16 years ago are still waiting for answers.Mullivaikkal, Sri Lanka – On a beach in northeastern Sri Lanka, Krishnan Anjan Jeevarani laid out some of her family’s favourite food items on a banana leaf. She placed a samosa, lollipops and a large bottle of Pepsi next to flowers and incense sticks in front of a framed photo. Jeevarani was one of thousands of Tamils who gathered on May 18 to mark...

For some girls in Sri Lanka's hill country, getting a period means having to skip classes unless their families can find money for sanitary pads.When 14-year-old Janani gets her period, she doesn't always make it to school. Some days, there are no sanitary pads at home, and Janani is forced to use a pad made from old clothes. On those days, she skips classes. "I feel ashamed of using cloth," Janani told DW. "If we miss school because of this, they won't teach us again the lessons we've missed,...

“ALMOST EVERYONE in this society is wounded,” Galkande Dhammananda said. “Reconciliation will take time.”Dhammananda wears the flowing saffron robes characteristic of Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, with his head shaven as per tradition. He has kind eyes framed by large, black-rimmed glasses. His face is smooth and unlined, almost ageless, with just a few worry lines on his forehead. Himal’s in-depth, long-form reportage shows you Southasia like you’ve never seen it before. Become a Patron today to...

Some of the world’s leading tea manufacturers, including Tetley and Lipton, are examining working conditions on the plantations of its Sri Lankan suppliers, following a Guardian investigation. Two global trade-certification schemes, Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance, are also conducting inquiries after it was revealed that some workers on 10 certified estates could not afford to eat and were living in squalid conditions. Tea pickers claim that estate owners failed to support them during th

Ramanthan Vijayalakshmi can reel off the date of her brother’s death by memory — Oct. 17, 1995. A 47-year-old resident of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Vijayalakshmi had lost contact with him five years before he died, when he had been recruited as a fighter by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, a militant group that had been waging a civil war against the Sri Lankan government to create a separate Tamil homeland, Tamil Eelam. Her brother, Ramalingam Punniyamoorthy, was only in the eighth grad

The smugglers promised that a cruise liner would take them to Canada in comfort. But the MV Lady 3 did not meet such lofty expectations. Rusting and decrepit, the Myanmar-flagged fishing vessel was barely seaworthy, with no sleeping quarters and just two toilets for the 303 largely Tamil men, women and children packed on board. The food was scant — thin porridge or rice, infested with bugs. And the drinking water was the same orange colour as the flaking hull. In 30 days at sea last fall, the

The explosions in 1990 were the start of the second phase of the civil war between the Sri Lankan military and ethnic Tamil separatists that ravaged the island from 1983 to 2009. Almost all of Palaly’s 44,000 residents who were mostly Tamil, either fled or were evacuated by the Sri Lankan government in June and July 1990. For many in Palaly, that was the last time they would set foot on their ancestral land, and for almost all of them, the last time they would see their homes. Shatheeskumar, who

KILINOCHCHI, Oct 26 (Reuters) - (This Oct. 26 story has been corrected to fix name of official to Mahesh Katulanda in paragraph 16 and 20) Arumuga Lakshmi, tormented by questions about the fate of her two children, missing for years, marched through a town in northern Sri Lanka with a group of women, many holding up photographs, black flags and burning torches. During a brutal 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and a militant group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),

MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Under a blazing sun, a 44-year-old Tamil labourer tended his rented patch of peanut field in Sri Lanka, striking his spade against the earth in a daily struggle to beat inflation that has put many necessities out of reach. "I have more difficulties than a daily wage labourer," said Singaram Soosaiyamutthu, who moves around on the palms of his hands after an air strike in 2009 took both his legs and injured his left arm. That was during the last stages

(CNN) The southern French port city of Marseille has made headlines in recent months over the deaths of several young people in drug-related shootouts, in what is often referred to as a "settling of scores." A spate of killings this summer, including that of a 14-year-old boy named Rayanne in mid-August, prompted two visits from President Emmanuel Macron in September and October and a promise of billions of euros to tackle the problem.