A mass grave containing skeletal remains of more than 90 people was unearthed in the north-western town of Mannar --a war zone during the time of Sri Lankan civil war. It is said to be the second biggest mass grave found in Sri Lanka ever since the war ended in 2009, reports BBC.
More than 1 lakh people perished in the 26-year-long war between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil separatists and many are still considered missing.
The excavation process was ordered by a court after human remains were discovered at the site when workers were digging foundations for the construction of a new building earlier this year. The remains unearthed include skeletons of at least six children, according to the BBC report.
The Tamil-dominated Mannar town remained under the control of the Sri Lankan army during the civil war but the surrounding areas and other parts of the district were dominated by the Tamil rebels.
The military captured the entire district after they pitched battles with the rebels during the conflict which ended almost 10 years ago.
Since the end of the civil war, a number of mass graves have been unearthed, including the largest at another part of Mannar where remains of 96 people were found near Thiruketheeswaram, a prominent Hindu temple, in 2014.
Four years have passed and yet there is still no conclusive evidence as to who the victims were and who killed them.
Human rights groups claim that around 20,000 people had disappeared during the conflict, which had started in 1983. They blamed the army and the Tamil Tigers for the widespread civilian deaths.
However, the Sri Lankan government denies that its forces had any hand in the death and disappearance of civilians.
However, international pressure has made the government set up the Office of Missing Persons (OMP) in 2018 to investigate the disappearance of the people during the civil war, BBC reported.
The Tamils are sceptical whether the authorities will find anything this time, given their failures in investigating the remains found in mass graves previously.
Many in the Tamil community believe that if the country wants to exorcise ghosts of the past, the government has to find out what happened to the people who disappeared. They also need to sincerely investigate the remains found in the mass graves and only then the affected families will be able to grieve properly and try to rebuild their lives.
