File photograph 

Tamil families of the disappeared have announced a mass protest in Batticaloa on August 30th, to mark the International Day of the Disappeared and amplify their calls for accountability and justice.

Batticaloa Association of Disappeared Persons have reportedly organised the rally and called on all other disappeared persons associations from across the North-East to join the protest. The demonstration will commence near Kallady bridge in Batticaloa around 8:30 am and will culminate at the monument to assassinated journalists in Gandhi Park.

A. Amalanayagi, the head of Batticaloa's Association of Disappeared Persons, has issued an invitation for everyone to unite in their campaign for justice.  The families will be joined by activists, civil society organisations, student unions and Tamil political parties to reaffirm their longstanding calls for international justice and answers about the fate of their loved ones who were focribly disappeared at the hands of the Sri Lankan state.

Since February 2017, Tamil families of the disappeared have been protesting continuously across the North-East, to demand an international investigation into the disappearances of their relatives. Many of the families handed over their relatives to the Sri Lankan military at the end of the armed conflict in May 2009 and have not been seen since. 

Successive Sri Lankan governments have failed to fulfil their pledges to investigate these disappearances. While the state has set up various commissions, none of them have provided any meaningful action. This has led the families to lose their confidence in domestic mechanisms and shift their calls for an international accountability mechanism.