Batticaloa (Sri Lanka) (AFP) – “A. Komalachelvan, Ananandam Nadesaligam…” Sitting in front of the church, Saradhadevi Thadcanamoorty lists the names that blacken her four handwritten pages. Those of 124 husbands, fathers or brothers who disappeared during the civil war that tore Sri Lanka apart.

Published on: 01/11/2026 - 11:15

"...Wickremaratae Chaminda". End of list. The sixty-year-old gets up, picks up her sign and slowly heads towards the center of the town of Batticaloa (east), followed by the three other women who have joined her at the foot of a statue of the Virgin.

Amidst the backfires of the traffic, the “march for justice” sets off. For the 1,604th consecutive day.

From 1983 to 2009, Sri Lanka was the scene of a deadly war pitting the army of the majority Sinhalese government against Tamil separatist rebels, a minority ethnic group on the South Asian island.

According to UN assessments, the fighting, bombings and other attacks have left at least 100,000 dead, including many civilians.

Tens of thousands of men also disappeared during this fratricidal conflict, kidnapped, tortured or executed by security forces or fighters from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eleam (LTTE).

More than 15 years after the end of hostilities, the fate of most of them remains a mystery.

The complaints, appeals or demonstrations from families, international pressure and repeated promises from the authorities who have since succeeded each other at the head of the country have changed nothing.

“Never seen again”

The story of the Tamil Saradhadevi Thadcanamoorty alone sums up the tragedies of the war, and the vain quest for truth and justice of the victims' loved ones.

On July 22, 1992, her husband Nallathambi, 34, was found dead in his field, shot in the head. The witnesses are clear that he was shot dead by a soldier, whom his wife immediately reported to the police.

“They told me ‘if you say that your husband was killed by a soldier, they will never give him back to you’,” she testifies. “So I ended up filing a complaint against X. I recovered his body, compensation of 50,000 rupees (135 euros today) and the investigation stopped there.”

On January 12, 2000, it was the turn of his son Navaneethan, 19, to disappear. The mother claims that, like many others, he was kidnapped by the rebellion to be forcibly conscripted.

“I never saw him again,” says Saradhadevi Thadcanamoorty. “In 2016, I submitted a request for information to the authorities, they told me that his fate was unknown. I only received a certificate of disappearance. Not the truth.”

Lakshmi Silva has little more certainty.

On July 7, 1990, the Sinhalese husband of this sixty-year-old Tamil woman disappeared while traveling by bus from Batticaloa to the capital Colombo. At a roadblock, armed men took him away.

“Witnesses assured me that it was ‘Tigers’,” confides the wife.

"Anger"

Here again, his approaches to the police and the separatists remained unanswered.

Everyone he spoke to advised him not to make waves. In 1994, a magistrate finally issued him a death certificate. Causes of death “unknown”. And since then, nothing. “I don’t think he will come back anymore,” confesses Lakhsmi Silva.

So she tried to turn the page. “I only live for my children,” she says. “I don’t want them to experience the same pain as me or to be angry with anyone.”

Many other “widows” are not satisfied with this silence and continue their fight.

“I always had hope,” proclaims Rajeshwari Chithiravadivel, 61. On the wall of her house, she hung a charcoal portrait of a smiling mustachioed man, between his wife and daughter.

Her husband, disappeared on February 20, 1989. Kidnapped by masked men while shopping.

The authorities gave him a death certificate in 1998. Two years later, the Red Cross presented her for identification with the body of a man who could have been that of her husband. “But he wasn’t recognizable, so I continue to believe it.”

It is for her and the others that the most convinced continue to parade every day in Batticaloa.

Like these Argentine mothers who for years toured the “Plaza de Mayo” in Buenos Aires to demand to know the fate of their children who disappeared during the military dictatorship (1976-1983).

“Great silence”

“We secretly hoped to be joined by thousands of people but that is obviously not the case,” notes bitterly one of the most diligent marchers, trade unionist Sarala Emmanuel.

“Nothing has changed. It’s still the great silence,” she regrets. “But we persevere because we value this space to talk about history, stories, injustices. And ask questions.”

Since 2009, Sri Lankan civil society, international NGOs and the UN have continued, report after study, to demand from governments that all light is finally shed on the crimes committed during the war and that their perpetrators be judged.

In 2024, the election of Anura Kumara Dissanayake as head of Sri Lanka has revived all hopes.

In his election manifesto, the first left-wing president in the country's history promised to "investigate and bring justice." And to create a national and independent prosecutor’s office specially responsible for doing so.

Two years later, the disappointment is immense.

Progress has been made, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted in September, but the government has not responded to “the urgency of putting an end to impunity”.

“A few investigations have made progress on one or two emblematic cases (...) but on forced disappearances, there is no movement,” annoys Tamil opposition MP Rasamanikham R. Shanakiyan.

"Emergency"

“Successive governments are reluctant to act against impunity because they are, for the most part, Sinhalese Buddhists,” he adds. In the same camp as the alleged perpetrators of numerous abuses.

“The heads of the security forces certainly don't want it either, they know that it could come back to them in the face,” continues the MP.

Asked by AFP about the status of the independent prosecution project, the Ministry of Justice did not respond.

In 2018, the government set up an Office for Missing Persons (OMP) responsible for shedding light on the fate of the missing. He says he now has 22,000 files before him, far from the 100,000 disappearances mentioned by the UN.

Its results are modest, to say the least. Over the past three years, the OMP has found traces of... 24 people reported missing.

“For families who have been waiting for two, sometimes three decades, it is clear that things are not going fast enough,” concedes one of the members of the Bureau, Mirak Raheem. “It is becoming difficult to find witnesses,” he pleads, “many documents have disappeared.”

“We recognize the urgency of the situation,” continues Mr. Raheem, “and that without an investigation by the OMP or the courts, a lot of evidence will be lost.”

So despite her weariness, despite the pressures she says she is under, Saradhadevi Thadcanamoorty is preparing to continue marching in the streets of Batticaloa.

“We don’t want money, just truth and justice,” she insists, “I refuse that our suffering be bequeathed to the next generation.”

© 2026 AFP

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