Jaffna HRC to investigate cases of persons disappeared at the end of war on Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 23 July 2010, 17:46 GMT]
An official of Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office said that the first stage of preliminary investigation to find out the fate of persons who had disappeared after leaving Liberation Tigers controlled area in Vanni at the end of the war, is in the offing. Representatives of Associations related to finding persons disappeared after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) or surrender, however, said that they believe that the above announcement will also end up with no results just as their earlier complaints to HRC, ICRC and UNHCR on disappeared persons remain stored in files without any action taken on them so far.

Around 1200 to 2000 youths had disappeared after being arrested by Sri Lanka Armed Forces in 1997, 98 and after 2006 and the complaints made to humanitarian institutions have not produced any results at all, the representatives pointed out.

The intention of Jaffna HCR is to find the fate of disappeared persons who had entered Oamanthai, surrendering themselves to SLA at the end of the war.

The HRC official also said that more than 1100 complaints related to disappeared persons have been registered with HRC Jaffna office in 2009 and 2010.

More than a thousand similar complaints have been registered with Vavuniyaa HRC office as there is no office of the HRC in Vanni.

Talks between Jaffna HRC and Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence are being held and a decision is expected to be taken soon in this issue, the HRC official said.

He added that it is being considered to open a temporary HRC coordinating office in Ki’linochchi.