Sri Lanka Police have recorded 9,105 arrests of children and young people in connection with drug-related offences over the past year, including 11 children aged between eight and 14.
Police Media Spokesperson Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) F. U. Wootler said the arrests were made between 30 October 2025 and 1 October 2026. Of those taken into custody, 8,932 were young males and 173 were young women.
ASP Wootler said it was particularly concerning that children as young as eight were among those detained over narcotics offences.
A running total, not a single operation
The figure is a cumulative count covering a full 12-month window, and should not be read as the result of a single raid or campaign. Police release these aggregates periodically, and each release covers a different reporting period — a distinction that matters when comparing headline numbers across months.
In late July, police reported 239,384 drug-related arrests over a nine-month period under the nationwide “Ratama Ekata” operation, a tally that separately identified 7,866 young people aged 18 to 21 and 743 children aged 14 to 18. That count covered a different window and a different set of age bands, so it is not directly comparable with the latest figure.
Context
Child and youth exposure to narcotics has been a recurring focus for the government this year. The Cabinet has moved to build a mechanism to educate parents directly on protecting children from the drug trade, and the police narcotics hotline 1818 was expanded to round-the-clock operation at the end of September.
Police have not released a breakdown of the offences involved, or of how many of those arrested were referred to rehabilitation rather than prosecution.
