A Question Of Hope: Holding On To The Final Straw Or Letting Go?

By D. Da Silva -August 29, 2013

‘We were on the run because of shelling while we were walking towards Puthukuddiruppu, one moment my husband was still next to me, the next moment I couldn’t see him because of all the smoke. I was not sure if he was injured by shelling but I knew that if I with my children would stop running that we would be the next victims.  I just prayed that he would be fine and once this all would be over, we would meet again’ until now her husband has not returned home, he is one of the 5,671[1] that is still missing.

Family members of disappeared Tamil people holding pictures of their relatives protest during the visit of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013. Pillay is in Sri Lanka for seven days during which she will meet government officials, human rights activists and travel the country’s former war zone where thousands of civilians were allegedly killed. Photo: AP

In the same week of the visit of Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, the Sri Lankan government was summoned by the Sri Lankan court to investigate the cases of 2,550 missing persons.  In response the additional magistrate Nirosha Fernando ordered the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) to launch a broad investigation into the disappearances of missing persons in North and East[2].

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