Mass Graves keep tumbling out as case gets strengthened for Impartial Investigation..
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Sri Lanka family finds mass grave in garden
A Sri Lankan family has stumbled upon the remains of at least nine bodies buried in the garden of their home, police said Saturday, the latest mass grave to be discovered in the country`s former war zone.
The family made the grisly find on Friday while clearing out their garden in the town of Puthukkudiririppu in the northern district of Mullaittivu, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.
`Remains of nine people had been found so far and the skeletal remains were taken for analysis by the judicial medical officer in the area,` Rohana told reporters.
The discovery comes just days after officials raised the number of bodies found in December in an unmarked mass grave in the adjoining district of Mannar to 80.
It was the first grave uncovered in the ex-war zone since troops defeated Tamil rebels nearly five years ago following a decades-long conflict for a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils.
Friday`s discovery comes ahead of a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session starting Monday in Geneva where Sri Lanka faces a US-led censure resolution criticising Colombo for its alleged failure to probe war crimes. It would be the third such motion.
Last month, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Australia accused Sri Lankan authorities of exhuming mass graves and destroying evidence of civilian killings, a charge denied by Colombo.
A Sri Lankan family has stumbled upon the remains of at least nine bodies buried in the garden of their home, police said Saturday, the latest mass grave to be discovered in the country`s former war zone.
The family made the grisly find on Friday while clearing out their garden in the town of Puthukkudiririppu in the northern district of Mullaittivu, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.
`Remains of nine people had been found so far and the skeletal remains were taken for analysis by the judicial medical officer in the area,` Rohana told reporters.
The discovery comes just days after officials raised the number of bodies found in December in an unmarked mass grave in the adjoining district of Mannar to 80.
It was the first grave uncovered in the ex-war zone since troops defeated Tamil rebels nearly five years ago following a decades-long conflict for a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils.
Friday`s discovery comes ahead of a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session starting Monday in Geneva where Sri Lanka faces a US-led censure resolution criticising Colombo for its alleged failure to probe war crimes. It would be the third such motion.
Last month, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre in Australia accused Sri Lankan authorities of exhuming mass graves and destroying evidence of civilian killings, a charge denied by Colombo.
