Action Against Hunger submit report to UN over massacre

by admin
Apr 25, 2012
The humanitarian organisation Action Contre La Faim (“Action Against Hunger” or ACF) have submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council regarding the massacre of 17 of their employees in Muttur in August 2006.

Together with SPEAK, the report for the Fourteenth Session of the upcoming Universal Periodic Review in October 2012 said that the crime was,
“internationally condemned as one of the most atrocious acts perpetrated against humanitarian aid workers”.
The massacre was widely believed to have been committed by members of Sri Lanka’s Armed Forces, after 15 ACF staff members were found gunned down execution style on the floor of their office in Muttur, dressed in their ACF T-Shirts. A further two bodies were found in a car nearby, killed while possibly trying to escape. All except one were Tamils.

Recently, the Daily Mirror reported that French Ambassador Ms. Christine Robichon met Sri Lanka’s Attorney General to discuss the status of investigations, almost 6 years after the incident. No-one has yet been arrested.

The submitted report stated that,
“the United Nations and the international community must adequately address Sri Lanka’s utter failure to fulfil its international  obligations”.
It further went on to call on the international community to,
“set up an independent body of international experts having the necessary expertise to investigate into violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws.”
Read the submission in full here.

Between January 2006 and December 2007 alone 67 aid workers were either killed or forcibly disappeared in Sri Lanka. The situation led to the UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes to label Sri Lanka “one of the most dangerous places for aid workers in the world."

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