COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s government Tuesday formally apologized to the island’s Muslim minority for forcing cremations on Covid victims, disregarding WHO assurances that burials in line with Islamic rites were safe.
The cabinet issued an “apology regarding the compulsory cremation policy during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the government said in a statement.
It said a new law would guarantee the right to burial or cremation to ensure the funeral customs of Muslims or any other community were not violated in future.
Traditionally, Muslims bury their dead facing Makkah. Sri Lanka’s majority Buddhists are typically cremated, as are Hindus.
Muslim representatives in Sri Lanka welcomed the apology, but said their entire community, accounting for about 10 percent of the island’s 22 million population, was still traumatized.
“We will now sue two academics — Meththika Vithanage and Channa Jayasumana — who were behind the forced cremation policy of the government,” Hilmy Ahamed, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told AFP.
“We will also seek compensation.”
Ahamed said a young Muslim couple suffered untold anguish when their 40-day-old infant was cremated by the state against their wishes.
Then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa banned burials despite his administration facing international condemnation at the UN Human Rights Council and other forums for violating Muslim funeral norms.
In a book published earlier this month, he defended his action saying he was only carrying out “expert advice” from Vithanage, a professor of natural resources, not to let Covid victims be interred.
She has no medical background.
Rajapaksa halted his forced cremations policy in February 2021 following an appeal from then Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan during a visit to Sri Lanka.
The government then allowed burials at the remote Oddamavadi area in the island’s east under strict military supervision — but without the participation of the bereaved family.
Rajapaksa was forced out of office two years ago following months of protests over an unprecedented economic crisis, which had led to shortages of food, fuel and medicines.
Sri Lanka apologizes for cremating Muslim Covid victims
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Sri Lanka apologizes for cremating Muslim Covid victims
- The cabinet issued an “apology regarding the compulsory cremation policy during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the government said in a statement
Al-Shabab extremists are greatest threat to peace in Somalia and the region, UN experts say
- The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend authorization for the African Union’s “support and stabilization” force in Somalia until Dec. 31, 2026
UNITED NATIONS: The Al-Shabab extremist group remains the greatest immediate threat to peace and stability in Somalia and the region, especially Kenya, UN experts said in a report released Wednesday.
Despite ongoing efforts by Somali and international forces to curb operations by Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab, “the group’s ability to carry out complex, asymmetric attacks in Somalia remains undiminished,” the experts said.
They said the threat comes not only from Al-Shabab’s ability to strike — including within the capital, Mogadishu, where it attempted to assassinate the president on March 18 — but from its sophisticated extortion operations, forced recruitment and effective propaganda machine.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend authorization for the African Union’s “support and stabilization” force in Somalia until Dec. 31, 2026. The force includes 11,826 uniformed personnel, including 680 police.
The extremist group poses a significant threat to neighboring Kenya “by conducting attacks that vary from attacks with improvised explosive devices, which predominantly target security personnel, to attacks on infrastructure, kidnappings, home raids and stealing of livestock,” the experts said.
This year, Al-Shabab averaged around six attacks a month in Kenya, mostly in Mandera and Lamu counties, which border Somalia in the northeast, the panel said.
The experts said Al-Shabab’s goal remains to remove Somalia’s government, “rid the country of foreign forces and establish a Greater Somalia, joining all ethnic Somalis across east Africa under strict Islamic rule.”
The panel of experts also investigated the Islamic State’s operations in Somalia and reported that fighters were recruited from around the world to join the extremist group, the majority from east Africa. At the end of 2024, they said the group known as ISIL-Somalia had a fighting force of over 1,000, at least 60 percent of them foreign fighters.
“Although small in terms of numbers and financial resources compared with Al-Shabab, the group’s expansion constituted a significant threat to peace and security in Somalia and the broader region,” the panel said.
