While the outgoing president Mahinda Rajapakse is given as reelected by the electoral commission the hotel of his adversary the ex-chief of the armies is surrounded by the soldiers. The latter rejects the result of the ballot. Sarath Fonseka has requested the protection of a foreign country to ensure its safety in the face of…
About fifteen dead and up to 300 missing in Sri Lanka. These are the consequences of mudslides in Haldummulla, a village in the center of the island. These landslides were caused by several days of heavy rains.More than 150 homes were buried. According to the minister responsible for natural disaster management, 75 children escaped the…
Riots have broken out in Sri Lanka in several parts of the country, under tension since the carnage of the Easter attacks. In Kurunegala, about 90 km northeast of the capital Colombo, police arrested a group of men who attacked businesses run by Muslims. It was Monday morning, testimony of a trader: “They came with…
As the country celebrated the traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year, a 91-meter-high pile of garbage, destabilized overnight by torrential rains and a fire, collapsed, burying huts in a slum. Police said a total of 145 homes were demolished. “There was a great noise,” said a man. We heard people screaming. The houses behind us…
Sri Lanka was hit on Sunday by a series of attacks on luxury hotels and churches celebrating Easter Mass, killing more than 200. What happened ? Powerful explosions occurred in the early morning, around 8:30 am to 9:00 am local time, at three luxury beachfront hotels in the capital Colombo. The affected establishments, Shangri-La, Kingsbury…
Francis also pleaded for the freedom to believe in a country wounded by interfaith tensions and called on leaders to repent. The pope went to the north-west of the island to the Marian shrine of Madhu, in the Tamil zone. This symbolic place which was on the front line is now a place of peace…
The head of United Nations Humanitarian Affairs leaves Sri Lanka “disappointed”. John Holmes did not get a “green light” from the government to send a humanitarian team to the region where the Tamil Tigers are entrenched, surrounded by the army which intends to end a separatist rebellion that began in the 1970s. At least 50,000…
During the campaign he was accused of corruption and of failing to seal national reconciliation. It was his former Minister of Health, Maithripala Sirisena, who had gone to the opposition, who therefore won the election.
In Sri Lanka, polling stations closed on Monday at 4 p.m. local time, after legislative elections placed under enhanced protection. 74,000 police and gendarmes monitored the ballot. With these elections, the country’s former strongman, Mahinda Rajapakse, president for nearly ten years until his failure in the January presidential election, is trying to return to center…
Sri Lankan police and soldiers are still present on the scene, the assault is still fresh. We are in Sainthamaruthu, 45 km south of the site of the attack on Easter, which marked Sri Lanka. 15 dead On the night of Friday to Saturday, Sri Lankan authorities clashed with jihadists suspected of being linked to…
Pope Francis has started a two-day visit to Sri Lanka, a country which remains deeply marked by three decades of war between the government, dominated by the Sinhala majority, and the Tamil rebels, the ethnic minority. Welcomed at Colombo airport by the new president Maithripala Sirisena, the Holy Father launched an appeal for reconciliation and…
Nearly 150 people are still wanted following the landslides in Sri Lanka. The toll continues to grow after the torrential rains that have hit the country for three days. Seventeen bodies were found on Wednesday, bringing the death toll to 37. The Red Cross said it fears that there are several hundred villagers missing. What…
The death toll of the attacks that hit luxury hotels and Catholic churches celebrating Easter on Sunday worsened to 207 dead and more than 450 injured, police said. The Sri Lankan authorities have declared an immediate curfew and the temporary blocking of social networks to prevent the dissemination of “incorrect and false information” in response…
At least 17 people were found dead in Sri Lanka on Wednesday while more than 200 families are missing in the mudslides that affected 3 villages in the center of the country, about 70 kilometers north of the capital, Colombo. This new report brings to at least 37 the number of dead since the start…
Sri Lanka ends 37 years of civil war but the international community is concerned about the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the conflict. President Rajapakse congratulated himself on killing the last 300 rebels on Monday. Among the victims, the supreme leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Vellupilai Prabhakan. These diehards were holed up in…
Hopes of finding survivors are slim after the devastating mudslides in Sri Lanka. This is what the authorities indicated on Thursday the day after the tragedy in the village of Haldummulla, 200 kilometers from the capital Colombo. Backhoes and rescuers tackled tons of mud that swept away some 150 tin houses on a tea plantation….
The cricket match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, which was played this Sunday in Colombo, was interrupted for about twenty minutes following throwing of various objects. Marvan Atapattu’s men were not very enterprising and never really managed to worry their opponents, a spectacle that did not please their supporters. Pakistan ultimately won and leads 2-1…
On the second day of his visit to Sri Lanka, Pope Francoise visited the waterfront in Colombo, the country’s capital. The Bishop of Rome crossed the famous city promenade in his popemobile and sparked the jubilation of the faithful who had been waiting for him for hours. About a million worshipers had gathered to attend…
Sri Lankan army soldiers relish their advance. This morning, and for the first time in 25 years of war, they took control of the entire coastline, according to military officials. They make it impossible for Tamil warriors to have any access to the sea, and now completely encircle the tiny territory of one square kilometer…
The founder and leader of the Tamil guerrilla was reportedly killed by the Sri Lankan army. Velupillai Prabhakaran is said to have been ambushed while trying to escape in an ambulance with two of his lieutenants. The Sri Lankan army has also announced that it controlled the entire island for the first time since the…