Mannar fishing village protests Sri Lanka Navy's ongoing harassment and intrusion

by Abi
Feb 21, 2018

Residents of a Mannar fishing village have protested against the Sri Lankan Navy’s ongoing harassment and intrusion into their livelihoods.

The fishing community of Talaimannar expressed their anger at the constant intrusions and hindrances by the Sri Lankan Navy into carrying out their livelihood, particularly with regards to blocking access to an islet (Theedai) and its surrounding waters.

The Talaimannar residents said that they first struggled to regain permission to fish in their traditional areas when the wildlife department attempted to block them off for ‘conservation reasons’.

Having regained permission from the government, they are still being constantly hindered by the Navy, with the situation escalating last week when navy personnel made threats of violence to turn away the fishermen.

The community engaged in a roadblock protest outside Talaimannar police station on Monday, demanding that the Navy be withdrawn from their areas and stop intruding into their livelihoods.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button