Sri Lanka's navy said on Thursday it had intercepted a freighter filled with aid, funded by Tamil Tiger sympathisers bound for formerly rebel-held areas. The boat reached Sri Lankan waters three weeks after the rebels lost a decades-old war.
Since its victory over the Tamil Tigers, the image of Sri Lanka the Army wants the world to see is a country at peace on the path to reconciliation. France 24 reports on a military-run education centre that houses a hundred former child soldiers.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has categorically rejected allegations that his organisation deliberately underestimated the death toll from the recent fighting in Sri Lanka, where government forces ended a 30-year insurgency by the Tamil Tigers.
Sri Lanka said it would only allow its own courts - and not international ones - to investigate reported human rights abuses and thousands of civilian deaths during the government's military campaign against Tamil Tigers, which ended in May.
UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said there may never be a reliable death toll for civilians who died during Sri Lankan army's final offensive against rebel Tamils, adding that a reported figure of 20,000 victims had not been confirmed.
After denouncing the UN's complacency toward civilian casualties in Sri Lanka, French daily Le Monde on Friday ran an article about three doctors who, because they stayed behind to care for the wounded, are now in police custody.
The UN downplayed Tamil civilian casualties during Sri Lanka’s recent offensive against the Tamil Tigers to keep peace with the government and maintain UN operations in the country, according to a French news daily.
Sri Lanka's government may have announced a triumphant end to its 26-year war with the Tamil Tigers, but the country remains deeply torn, not least on the Internet. Also in this edition: the fight against malnutrition picks up on the Web.
Sri Lanka's defeated Tamil rebel group, the LTTE, acknowledged for the first time on Sunday the death of their leader Prabhakaran. Sri Lankan forces have said that he was killed in fighting a week ago.
On a visit Saturday to a Sri Lankan camp housing 200,000 Tamils who fled clashes between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels, UN chief Ban Ki-moon (background) said he was "very moved" by the plight of the displaced, who lack adequate food and water.
