JAFFNA: Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil leaders on Sunday asked the top UN human rights official to help determine the fate of more than 4,000 civilians reported missing in the country’s long civil war amid the government’s assertion that most of them are probably dead.

The UN official, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, met the chief minister of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, the centre of the civil war, which ended in 2009. Zeid is on a four-day visit to Sri Lanka to review measures taken by the government to investigate alleged war abuses during the war.

Both the Sri Lankan government and the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels are accused of serious human rights violations. According to UN estimates, up to 100,000 people were killed in the 26-year war, but many more are feared to have died, including up to 40,000 civilians in the final months of the fighting.

The UN Human Rights Council last year adopted a consensus resolution in which Sri Lanka agreed to an investigation with foreign participation.

Zeid said he discussed several issues with Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and other provincial officials, including the missing people, detentions without trial and military-occupied private land. He said he would take the issues up with the central government.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2016