The lack of proper investigations over the issue of disappearances sends a message of impunity to the perpetrators, said US Ambassador Samantha Power, in an address to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

Speaking on the ‘Global Challenge of Accounting for Missing Persons’, Ms Power drew on her recent visits to Mexico and Sri Lanka, where she travelled to Jaffna and met with families of the disappeared.

Ms Power stated that both communities showed that there was an “enduring and all-encompassing, searing pain and hardship experienced by families who have had a loved one disappear”.

“In many instances, families’ sense of impotence was exacerbated by the routine failure of authorities to take basic steps to search for the missing or to bring to justice those responsible,” she added. “The lack of proper investigations doesn’t just hurt families – it also sends a message to perpetrators that they can continue to disappear people with impunity.”

“In both Mexico and Sri Lanka, I heard from families who reported cases to authorities, only to see them sit on key investigative leads or misplace crucial evidence,” she continued. “Others were discouraged or even threatened by the very officials whose job it was to help them.”

Ms Power went on to add:

“In Jaffna, Sri Lanka, just a couple months ago a mother told me how, in March of 2009 she had seen men in military uniforms abduct her 16-year-old daughter, and had been beaten when she tried to intervene. Yet despite promptly reporting that crime to officials, the mother told me, she had never heard anything back. She has spent nearly every day of the six years since searching for her daughter, whose whereabouts remain unknown.”

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena “appears to be indicating a withdrawal from the obligations” his government has committed to, said a statement signed by Tamil and sections of Sri Lankan civil society groups on Thursday.

The statement, which condemned Mr Sirisena’s recent comments, said the Sri Lankan government negotiated a consensus resolution passed at the 30th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in October 2015, and “now appears to be backtracking from even these compromised commitments”.

“Of particular concern was his accusation, quite similar to that of his predecessor, that those who allege such things have an LTTE connection,” added the statement, endorsed by 144 groups and individuals.

The civil society organisations also noted that just days later Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said his government would abide by commitments given in Geneva, stating:

“These contradictions between the President and the Prime Minister are however not new and have been a constant feature of the Government’s public communications about their commitments under the resolution ever since the resolution was passed”.

The British government has been urged to ensure Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena meets commitments agreed to under a UN Human Rights Council resolution passed last year, in a question raised in parliament today.

Wes Streeting, Member of Parliament for Ilford North and Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils told parliament: