Children of Men
Cuaron was doing a lot of pre-production research on contemporary civil unrests, wars etc. Probably came across our civil war which was already getting media interest around 2010 and decided to reference it in the film. Perhaps he also came to know about the Marxist insurgency of the 70s.
Because in the context of the story the son is supposed to be an insurgent murdered by the state it works doubly well as a Sinhala mother crying over her Marxist rebel son or a Tamil mother crying over her Ezlam rebel son. Either way it’s about our youth unrest.
The way the mother hold the son evokes La Pieta. That film is like a time capsule of modern human conflicts.