Mass grave found on Sri Lanka's last battlefield

March 03, 2014 - Nine bodies, most of them women, have been found in a mass grave in Sri Lanka in the area where the last, bloody battle of a 26-year war with Tamil separatists was fought in 2009. Local residents told Reuters by phone that the mass grave was found last week when a tractor was ploughing farmland in the northerly district of Mullaitivu. “We have found nine skeletons of mostly women with burn injuries," acting judicial medical officer Sinnaiyah Sivaruban told Reuters.

International pressure is growing on Sri Lanka's government to address allegations that tens of thousands of civilians were killed by the army in the final weeks of the war. The United States plans to put forward a resolution criticising Sri Lanka at this month's session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, and U.S. officials have said it may call for an international investigation. A U.N. panel has said around 40,000 mainly Tamil civilians died in the final few months of the war and that, although both sides committed atrocities, most were killed by army shelling.

Sri Lankan police and the military rejected the claims and said a proper investigation was under way. U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said last week that the government had failed to do its own credible investigations and there had been little progress in establishing accountability for "emblematic" wartime crimes. (Source: Reuters)