The United States and Sri Lanka have concluded their sixth Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training exercise, hosted by the Sri Lanka Navy at Trincomalee, the site of a naval facility documented as a torture centre and where eleven abducted young men, most of them Tamil, were held before they disappeared. The exercise ran from 27 to 31 July across Colombo, Trincomalee and the Indian Ocean, and involved the US Navy, the US Coast Guard, the Sri Lanka Navy and the Sri Lanka Air Force. The base at the centre of the exerciseNeither government's account of the week made reference to what the Trincomalee naval base is known for among Tamils. The ITJP's 2019 report, The Sri Lankan Navy: A Collective Blind Eye, set out a wider pattern of abduction, torture and enforced disappearance by the force. The US embassy described this as demonstrating how American security assistance builds Sri Lanka's long-term maritime capabilities.