Eight years after the end of Sri Lanka´s civil war, women are still desperately trying to receive information about their missing loved ones, Amnesty International estimates the number of disappeared could be as high as 100,000. The U.N. says the country has the second highest number of reported disappearances of all nations since 1980, behind Iraq.
Moises Saman examined the North’s difficult post-war situation and shares the story of the wives and mothers of the missing and their ongoing public protests to find out what happened to their loved ones.
These women have lost their livelihoods and land because it is occupied by the military. Most of them have experienced severe trauma due to a breakdown of traditional support structures, patriarchal attitudes, social stigma and years of violence.
As the war raged on in the '80s, '90s and 2000s, the government responded to the rebels' ruthlessness with brutal acts of its own. Forced disappearances and torture were favored tools to curb dissent. Many Tamil civilians were picked up in infamous "white vans," their bodies tortured and dumped – or never seen again.
The women talk of husbands snatched from their beds by security forces and sons who disappeared while out for a quick errand. Entire families have disappeared, allegedly at the hands of government forces. The women believe that their relatives are still alive, kept in secret prisons by the military.
The women’s agenda is simple: They want to know where their disappeared relatives are and what happened to them. President Sirisena met protest leaders in June 2017 and promised to release a list of all those who surrendered to or were detained by the military in the final weeks of the war. But promises have not been kept, and there is little sign the president will overcome the military’s resistance to releasing such information.
But the women keep demanding that the government take legal action against those responsible for the disappearances of their loved ones and seek justice for wartime violations.

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