Eye witness testimonies of the events of 2009 describe how Tamils were deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan armed forces during the final stages of the conflict, and how such targetting continues despite the government's claims of victory.
The testimonies, gathered by researchers at the rights group, Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), are detailed within the group's submission to the UN Human Rights Council's, 2nd cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session on Sri Lanka next month.
See here for TAG's UPR submission in full.
Extracts of eye witness testimonies published below:
One Tamil survivor told TAG, “I think there was a clear mission to destroy all of us because we were Tamil,” whilst another said, “the Army was deliberately targeting civilians and were hitting them indiscriminatorily (sic), which is why so many more civilians died than actually combatants.”
Revealing the existence of 'secret detention facilities' where 'Tamils were often subjected to torture', a witness told TAG, "Less than 5 percent of those in secret detention were Sinhala. The majority were Tamil including both LTTE soldiers as well as civilians."
Commenting on the immediate aftermath of the armed conflict, another witness told TAG, “there were also so many [Tamil] people who surrendered to the Army and went missing ever since. Lots of people I knew personally suffered a fate like this. Around 20 of them disappeared, there were women, young girls, children and elderly."
See here for summary of all civil society submissions to UPR by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay.
