“Help us find our children “ Tamil mothers tell Sri Lankan government

(Sept. 01, 2011) "Help us to find our children, without looking at our ethnicity or religion”, was the appeal launched by Tamil mothers in Sri Lanka on Wednesday, 31 August on the occasion of the “World Day of the disappeared”. A collective of various civil society groups, mostly Christians, organized a commemoration in Colombo, to demand the government of Sri Lanka to investigate and reveal the truth about the disappearance of the children of these women, during the long years of the ethnic conflict. Fernando Brito, a Catholic activist for human rights and president of the Families of the Disappeared, addressed the meeting saying "In the past, we did great things for the missing of the country. Now however, our President Mahinda Rajapaksa marginalises us, as if we were people who do not love our land. We have had enough of seeing these mothers crying for their loved ones, be they Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim. Whoever they are, they are mothers of this country, and we should do something constructive to help them” he added.
According to a United Nations study, Sri Lanka is the second country with the highest number of disappeared in the world - with about 12 thousand missing. In over 30 years, during the ethnic conflict that has bloodied the island, both the state and Tamil rebels were responsible for the large number of missing persons.