Tamil families of disappeared in East slam Sri Lanka’s offer of compensation

by Shabeeha
Oct 18, 2022

A protest was held in Batticaloa on Saturday, denouncing the Sri Lankan government’s offer of Rs. 200,00 compensation for relatives of those who had been forcibly disappeared or abducted by state forces.

The protest, which marched through Batticaloa, was led by  Thambirasa Selvarani, President of the Amparai Distrcit Missing Persons' Association, and had representatives from all three districts in the Eastern Province.

“How will the government provide us compensation during an economic crisis?” questioned one protestor, doubtful over the government’s intentions.

The demonstrators went on to denounce Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanisms and reiterated their call for an international accountability process to provide justice for their missing loved ones.


As they marched to their Divisional Secretariat, Sri Lankan police officers were dispatched to the protest.

Continuous protests have taken place across the North-East for several years now, with relatives of the disappeared demanding answers.

To date, no one has been held accountable for the disappearances of their relatives.

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button