‘Imagine losing your son or your husband’ – US Ambassador raises plight of families of the disappeared

by Thusiyan
Feb 24, 2021

The US Ambassador to Sri Lanka met with Tamil families of the disappeared this week, as she highlighted their struggle to find the whereabouts of their missing loves ones in a set of tweets.

“Imagine losing your son or your husband,” tweeted Ambassador Teplitz. “Now imagine never knowing what happened to him.”

“That’s the heartbreak experienced by families of the disappeared,” she continued. “A responsible govt must respect victims’ families and the recommendations of their own commissions for the sake of #healing.”

“Sadly, families from all backgrounds are still searching for answers across #SriLanka. Regardless of the circumstances, people deserve to know what happened to their loved ones.”

The ambassador’s trip to the North-East comes just days after Tamil families of the disappeared marked 4 years of protest with a rally through Kilinochchi, calling for justice for their relatives and for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Families of the disappeared in Vavuniya criticised the draft United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution this week, highlighting its failure to acknowledge Tamils, the need for an independent international accountability mechanism and nothing alluding to Tamil self-determination.

Over 75 parents have died since the protests began while searching for their missing children.

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