Sri Lanka conducts census of civilian deaths during last stages of civil war

Sri Lanka conducts census of civilian deaths during last stages of civil war

2011-11-25 04:46:19 GMT+7 (ICT)

COLOMBO (BNO NEWS) -- The Sri Lankan government on Thursday said it is counting for the first time how many civilians were killed during the final stages of the country's civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels, the Colombo Page reported.

Addressing a reconciliation conference, Defense Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said that counting the number of dead and missing and identifying the circumstances that led to the deaths will help to investigate the war crime allegations against security forces. He said that the government has already assigned officials in the North to identify the dead and missing individuals by name and how they died.

The Sri Lankan government maintained for several years that no civilians died as a result of military action but acknowledged that civilian casualties were unavoidable during a war in which rebels used civilians as human shields. The defense secretary said on Thursday that the government's count so far shows a 'very small number' of civilian casualties as a result of military action.

Rajapaksa acknowledged that its soldiers may have been responsible for some of the deaths during the war and promised to investigate any crimes. He said soldiers would be punished if any are found to have committed crimes.

In August, the government of Sri Lanka admitted there were civilian casualties during the final phase of its civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in a report released by the Ministry of Defense. Yet, the report did not establish the number of civilians that may have been killed during the last phase of the 26-year civil war.

The report came after a United Nations panel determined earlier this year that allegations that war crimes were committed by both Sri Lanka's military and the Tamil Tigers during were credible.

The bloody civil war between the government and the Tamil Tigers left as many as 100,000 people dead. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was militarily wiped out in May 2009, ending the conflict.

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