A senior military commander of the Sri Lankan Army has claimed that not a single person was in their custody.
"As a high-ranking officer of the army, I can say with authority that the persons claimed to be missing are not in the army camps,” Vanni Security Force Commander, Major General Boniface Perera said, according to the DailyMirror.
“There are no unaccounted persons at all,” he told media at Camp Joseph in the Vanni.
“I don’t think a solution could be found by staging demonstrations, carrying banners and blaming the army and the govt. They just need to come to the nearby camps and find out for themselves.
“During the war, 1,300 army personnel were lost in Mullaitivu. Their parents are worshipping in kovils, temples and mosques, hoping their sons would come back. But, if they don’t come within a year, they are given up for dead. During the war, 6000 army soldiers died. In the same way the LTTE leaders and many of their fighters died during the war. Nobody could even take photographs of them.
“During the war, if an army soldier died, we couldn’t tell his close associate whether he had died or not. In the same way, only the LTTE leaders knew whether their fighters had died or not. However, we can firmly state that the persons claimed to be missing are not in any of the army camps,” he said.
“Also, 300, 000 people were displaced during the humanitarian operation in the North. Foreign countries are finding fault with us for not resettling them and offering facilities to them. But we are, in fact, resettling the displaced people step by step in their own areas.
“The delay in resettlement is due to the large number of landmines that have to be cleared,” he said.