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More human remains unearthed from Chemmani graves; Turk meets relatives of missing people
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By S. Rubatheesan
The number of human remains unearthed from the Chemmani mass graves rose to 21 on Friday with the discovery of human remains of two more people during the second stage of the excavation—two days after United Nations Human Rights chief Volker Türk visited the site.
Excavation resumed under the judicial observation of the Jaffna Magistrate Court on Thursday, a day after Mr. Türk visited the area and met protesting relatives of disappeared people.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk during his visit to the north had several engagements. Here he is seen visiting the Nallur Kovil. Pix Romesh Madusanka
The relatives of the missing people told the UN Human Rights High Commissioner that their call for justice remained unmet and insisted they have the right to know the whereabouts of their loved ones, who went missing during the war.
Stressing that it was emotionally challenging to visit places where people have bad memories of the past, Mr. Türk said a woman he met had still not got over the trauma although her nephew disappeared in the mid-nineties.
“This is always the pain and suffering that you feel when you speak to people who don’t know what happened to their loved ones. This is a step further to accountability and justice,” he told the reporters.
“When you are at the mass grave site, the one thing that needs to be done is thorough, robust investigations by independent experts with forensic expertise, who can bring out the truth and bring closure to the pain and suffering of family members whose loved ones were disappeared,” Mr. Türk said.
In 1996, the Chemmani mass grave site hit the global headlines following the rape, murder and abduction of 18-year-old schoolgirl Krishanthy Kumarasamy, her mother, younger brother and neighbour.
During the trial, a military personnel, Somaratne Rajapakse, was handed a death sentence over the killings. He testified that that site contained the bodies of several people who were executed during the war.
Uthayakumar Rathy, 55, who came all the way from Delft, Jaffna, to Chemmani to meet the UN High Commissioner, says she believes only an impartial probe under international scrutiny will reveal the whereabouts of her 17-year-old son who went missing on January 3, 2008.
“I’m tired of attending government inquiries and testifying before various commissions. My only last wish is to know what happened to my son before I die. About 384 mothers and fathers like myself have passed away so far without knowing what happened to their sons and daughters,” Ms. Rathy told the Sunday Times.
She said when she heard that there was a fresh mass grave site at Chemmani, she was anxious yet helpless.
The Office of Missing Persons (OMP) said it had been granted permission by the Jaffna Magistrate Court to function as an observer during the excavation process since April 29 and it continued to oversee the process. “The OMP works towards ensuring multidisciplinary approach to mass grave investigations and protection of the rights of affected families,” an OMP statement said.
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