Chemmani mass grave toll reaches 366 ahead of ministerial visit
COLOMBO – The number of skeletal remains identified at the Chemmani mass grave in Jaffna has risen to 366, as excavators uncovered further remains of children on Tuesday (16), in one of the largest mass graves unearthed on the island.
Six sets of skeletal remains, including those of children, were recovered on the 26th day of the third phase of excavations, while a further six were newly identified during the day’s work. Two coins, found attached together, were recovered as evidentiary material from the pelvic area of one of the remains.
A total of 366 sets of skeletal remains have now been identified at the site, of which 357 have been excavated and recovered.
A delegation led by Sri Lankan Justice Minister Harshana Nanayakkara is expected to visit the excavation site on Friday (19).
A motion seeking the court’s permission for the visit was filed on Tuesday, and the matter was set to be taken up on Wednesday (17), when the court was expected to rule on whether the ministerial delegation may attend. A delegation from the Office on Missing Persons is also expected to join the visit.
The Chemmani mass grave first drew international attention in 1998, when a Sri Lankan soldier, Somaratne Rajapakse, testifying during the trial over the rape and murder of the Tamil schoolgirl Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, and the murder of her mother, brother and a neighbour, alleged that hundreds of Tamils who had been forcibly disappeared during the military’s occupation of Jaffna in the mid-1990s had been buried there.
Successive phases of excavation have since confirmed the scale of the killings, with the remains of men, women, children and infants recovered alongside personal effects.
Families of the disappeared and Tamil civil society organisations have repeatedly called for the excavations to be placed under international monitoring, citing the repeated failure of Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanisms, including the Office on Missing Persons, to win their trust or deliver accountability.
-TG
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