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| One of the skeletal remains exhumed at the Chemmani mass grave site, after a Sri Lankan court ordered the recommencement of excavation work last week. |
By Sandranathan Rubatheesan
The number of skeletal remains recovered at a mass grave site in Chemmani on the outskirts of Jaffna town in northern Sri Lanka has crossed 250 during the latest excavation work, human rights lawyers say.
On May 6, the excavation team recovered two human skeletons, including that of an infant, adding to the nine recovered the previous day.
The numbers are being declared by the lawyers in the presence of a magistrate after excavation activities every day.
At least 252 human remains have been recovered so far [at Chemmani], making it the country’s second largest mass grave site found in the post-war period,” claimed Kailayanathar Subagar, an attorney at law who was monitoring the excavation activities on behalf of aggrieved families.
A total of 241 human skeletons were recovered previously at the Chemmani site and are currently in judicial custody for further investigations.
Excavations commenced under the directives of the Jaffna Magistrate Courts on May 15 last year, but were temporarily halted on Sept. 6 that year due to monsoon rains.
Subagar said a Sri Lankan court ordered the recommencement of the excavation work last week.
“Along with the human remains, jewel-shaped objects and coins were also recovered at the site,” the lawyer told UCA News on May 6.
The Indian Ocean island nation of over 23 million people endured a brutal civil war between its army and the separatist militant group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), from 1983 to 2009.
The Chemmani site is one of more than 20 mass graves identified from that era in Sri Lanka.
The Mannar mass grave, discovered in 2018 at a former cooperative warehouse site in northwestern Sri Lanka, is considered the country's largest, with 346 skeletons unearthed by 2019, according to media reports.
The Chemmani mass grave site first came to light in 1998 following the disappearance of a 17-year-old school girl, Krishanthi Coomaraswamy, who was raped and killed along with her mother, brother, and neighbor.
An army soldier who was handed a death sentence over the killings testified before the courts that over 600 people were buried at the site after being killed by soldiers.
But for decades, the mass grave remained hidden until construction workers clearing land in the grounds of a Hindu cemetery in February last year unearthed human skeletal remains.
Chemmani, which is located just off the main road near the entrance to Jaffna town, served as a military checkpoint during the civil war.
Father C. G. Jeyakumar, who served as chair of Jaffna diocese’s Justice and Peace Commission in the 1990s, says hundreds of civilians went missing during military campaigns and search operations.
“This was never an isolated incident where one military officer carried out a heinous crime. It was a genocide where Tamil people were targeted and forcibly disappeared,” he told UCA News.
The priest stressed the lack of accountability from the government when it comes to crimes committed in the area, which falls under the Jaffna diocese.
“As someone who has closely followed these cases since the 1990s, I can say officers involved in the crimes were not apprehended even after the excavations commenced,” Jeyakumar said.
Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk visited the Chemmani mass grave site on June 25 last year during a three-day official visit to the country.
He stressed the need for rigorous, internationally led forensic investigations to ensure justice and closure for relatives of missing persons.
The Association for Relatives of the Enforced Disappearances (ARED) in North and Eastern provinces has called for an independent, international probe into the mass grave site findings.
It expressed distrust of any government mechanisms, including the state-run Office of Missing Persons.
ARED secretary, Leeladevi Anandanadaraja, said thousands of relatives of enforced disappeared persons in both provinces are still looking for answers on their missing loved ones.
“Even after 17 years having passed since the end of the war, we are still looking for justice and truth,” she told UCA News. (Courtesy: UCAN)
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