Aggrieved Sri Lankan Families Request for UN Help Over 'Abductions' of Relatives

Enforced disappearances stretch back to the 1980s.

Prageeth Ekneligoda photo courtesy: eelamview.com

(LONDON ANI) - Family members of missing people in Sri Lanka have urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to intervene and help them find the whereabouts of their disappeared relatives.

They have reportedly sent their appeal to Ki-Moon, marking 1,000 days since the disappearance of an anti-establishment cartoonist-cum-journalist, Prageeth Ekneligoda, a case which still remains unsolved.

The letter urged the Sri Lankan Government to prosecute those responsible and give information about people secretly detained, the BBC reports.

According to the report, the writers of the letter said they believed the victims were being held “somewhere on this island”.

A human rights campaigner, Nimalka Fernando, said that the enforced disappearances stretched back to the 1980s.

“We have seen that there are more than 5,000 complaints sent from Sri Lanka to the [UN] Working Group on Disappearances. The Sri Lankan government says they have looked into 59 cases out of all the complaints received,” she said.

There are still reports of kidnappings, or attempted kidnappings, taking place every month in Sri Lanka, but the government and security forces have consistently denied abducting people, the report said. (ANI)