For the first time, Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has admitted that some 20,000 people who disappeared during the country’s brutal civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels over a decade ago are “dead”.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former wartime defence secretary who played a key role in ending Sri Lanka’s nearly 30-year civil war with the Tamil separatist rebels, told UN Resident Coordinator Hanaa Singer last week that after the necessary investigations are completed steps would be taken to issue death certificates to these missing persons, the Colombo Gazette reported.
According to the government figures, over 20,000 people are missing due to various conflicts including the three-decade separatist war with Lankan Tamils in the north and east which claimed at least 100,000 lives.
The Tamils alleged that thousands were massacred during the final stages of the war that ended in 2009 when the government forces killed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The Sri Lankan Army denies the charge, claiming it as a humanitarian operation to rid the Tamils of LTTE’s control.