The article below is combined from reports published at http://www.tamilnet.com.
On March 16, more than 100,000 expatriate Tamils crowded downtown Toronto, Canada, to raise the plight of the more than 250,000 Tamil civilians trapped by the Sri Lankan Army's (SLA) war and subjected to continuous artillery attacks and aerial bombardment.
Police officials said this was the largest ever rally held in Toronto.
On the same day, more than 25,000 Tamils, especially youth, from across Europe took to the streets of Brussels to demand that the European Union end its proscription on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a "terrorist" organisation; exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to allow medicine and food to the civilians besieged by the SLA; and to demand the SLA pull out from the Tamil homeland in the island's north-east.
The organisers blamed the EU's misguided policy on proscribing the LTTE, which has waged a decades-long armed struggle for Tamil independence from Sri Lanka, as having tilted the diplomatic balance between the parties in the conflict — causing the current war of aggression against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state.
More than 10,000 Tamils also staged a protest the same day in front of the United Nations office in Geneva.
Protesters arrived in Brussels in 110 buses from Germany, 80 buses from France, 60 buses from London and around 10 buses from other countries.
On the same day, more than 200 Tamils protested in New York in front of the Office of the United States Mission to the United Nations urging the US and UN to stop Sri Lanka's genocide against the Tamil people.