The British Foreign Office Minister for Asia said there needs to be accountability in Sri Lanka and called for an independent credible investigations into violations of international humanitarian law.

Hugo Swire told The Telegraph, “Whatever mechanism is employed should be independent, credible and in accordance with international standards". “There needs to be accountability in order for Sri Lanka to move on from this extraordinarily dark period,” he said. “Sri Lankans need to know the truth about what happened.”

“A key will be to focus on those most responsible for most serious crimes,” said Ruki Fernando, who works with a human rights centre in Colombo. “Dropping the ball now, would be a great insult to survivors and victims families and human rights defenders, who have been abandoned and let down by the international community in the past, and who had yet taken great risks to share stories of suffering with the UN investigation team.”

“Their right to truth, justice, reparations, guarantees of non occurrence and to be consulted must be ensured.”

The Telegraph also spoke to Tamil disappearances activist Balendra Jeyakumary, who was detained by the Sri Lankan government last year. Ms Jeyakumary, a survivor from the final stages of the armed conflict in 2009, described the massacres she witnessed in Mullivaikkal.

“The shelling was never-ending and the air was so thick with smoke that we couldn’t breathe,” said Ms Jeyakumary. “There was no chance to bury the bodies. We had no food, no water, we were out in the open with nowhere to sleep. It is impossible to describe the horror of what we experienced. We were certain we would die.”

“The shelling never stopped... It came from artillery, from the air, from the sea. We were on the move constantly and all around us people were being blown to pieces. There were bodies everywhere, people with no heads, no limbs.”

She went on to talk about the death of her son on May 5, 2009. “There was yet more shelling. I was with my daughter and my son was a few feet away with the same group when more shells landed right by us."

“We were all thrown to the ground, but Kajeevan didn’t get up. He was killed instantaneously. Shrapnel from a shell split his head apart.

“I was howling and screaming, but there was no chance to say prayers or conduct any rites. I had to save my daughter. I tried to spread some dirt across his body, but we had to flee. I had to abandon my son like that, with the other dead.”

See the full piece here.