Over 100,000 Tamil civilians remain unaccounted for after Sri Lanka’s onslaught in 2009 into the northern Vanni region, Channel 4 reported Saturday.
Government census forms obtained by Channel 4 show 430,000 residents in Vanni in mid 2008. However internal UN documents also obtained by Channel 4 show only 290,000 people coming out of the final enclave overrun by the government’s troops and being put into its militarized internment camps.
Only 60% of the original residents have returned to Vanni, a Channel 4 source who recently visited the still miliarised region, also said.
Meanwhile, the UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka at the time of the government’s final onslaught, Gorden Weiss, says the death toll could be “shockingly high.”
“I believe a modest estimate of the number of civilians [killed] is probably 20-40,000. Others – significant others – have said the figures may well be far higher,” Weiss, who's recently published a book - 'The Cage' - on the fnal months war, said.
