WEB DESK
Sri Lanka’s president has acknowledged for the first time that more than 20,000 people who disappeared during the country’s civil war are dead. Gotabaya Rajapaksa made the remark in a meeting with a UN envoy in the capital, Colombo. The statement, on the president’s meeting with UN resident co-ordinator Hanaa Singer said most of the missing had been coned by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Steps would be taken to issue death certificates for those missing, the statement from his office said. Under Sri Lankan law, not having death certificates means that families cannot access property deeds, bank accounts or inheritances left by those missing relatives.
Hundreds of families of the missing have been attending rallies demanding to know where their loved ones are.