Family members of missing persons react during a meeting in Colombo. There could be anywhere between 16,000 and 40,000 missing during the two-and-half-decade war that ended in May 2009.

IRIN/Mannar

Six days after the January 8 election, around 300 families of those still missing as a result of Sri Lanka’s two-and-half-decade long civil war attended a prayer service led by Pope Francis at the Madhu Shrine in the northwestern district of Mannar.
Some held pictures of missing relatives; others held small signs calling for justice. But in a marked departure from the pattern of recent years, security forces prevented no one from protesting or entering the shrine compound.
Uthayachandra Manuel, a community activist in Mannar who heads the Association of Families Searching for their Disappeared Relatives, recalls quite a different reaction from the authorities during visits by former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and British Prime Minister David Cameron in August and
November 2013.
“There was a lot of harassment then. People were stopped from coming out; police would interview them and ask them to come to the station; one or two have been detained as well,” Manuel said. Her own activism began in 2008 when her eldest son was arrested. He has not been
heard of since.
When Pope Francis visited Sri Lanka earlier this month, Manuel and others in her group were able to hand him a letter containing the details of more than 3,300 missing persons and asking for his assistance in investigating their
disappearance.
“This time no one came to look for me; no one blocked us from getting into the church compound, or holding up pictures of the missing family members,” she said.
The issue of those still missing after the end of the war in 2009 has been vexed. A presidential commission set up under the previous government has so far received details of more than 20,000 cases, including at least 5,000 members of the Sri Lankan
defence forces.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has more than 16,000 cases reported by relatives of people missing since 1990. Meanwhile a report by the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Panel on Sri Lanka said the figure could be as high as 40,000.
So far there has been no national mechanism to trace or locate the missing. The previous government indicated it was willing to consider a tracing mechanism if recommended by the presidential commission. It had been expected to hand over its report by the middle of this year, but it is unclear whether it will continue to exist under the new
government.
Meanwhile, the new leadership has said that it would be more co-operative with the UN Human Rights Council, which has launched an investigation into alleged abuses committed during the protracted war in Sri Lanka. Although new Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera signaled a thawing of relations with the UN body, he also said the new government still prefers a national
investigation.
Despite early conciliatory gestures, the new Sri Lankan government may find it hard to gain international acceptance for such an investigation.