| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In November 2012, workers digging in the compound of a hospital in Matale, in central Sri Lanka, uncovered human remains. A full excavation revealed some 154 skeletons. Forensic reports point to signs of torture on the bodies and evidence of unnatural deaths (such as decapitation). Artifacts buried with the bodies indicate a time frame of 1986-90, precisely the period of fighting between the Sri Lankan state and the Sinhalese nationalist insurrectionary group Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which resulted in an estimated 60,000 missing and feared dead. Officials have rejected the dating of the bodies and claim that they are from the 1940s. North of Matale are the areas where the final battles of Sri Lanka's civil war took place. Many analysts, including members of the United Nations agency tasked with investigating accounts of the last battles, suggest that nearly 40,000 Tamil civilians died there between February and May 2009. In January of this year, another mass grave was uncovered, this time in northern Mannar. The
state claims that it contains the remains of those killed by the Tamil Tigers, also known as the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE); civil society figures argue that the dead were victims of the army. Excavation has halted, and the Archaeological Board has suggested that this site might in fact be a normal cemetery.
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