Several layers found in Mannar mass grave as count hits 36

Forensic experts have discovered more bodies in an unmarked mass grave in Sri Lanka’s former war zone, raising the total to 36.

A team led by judicial medical officer Dhananjaya Waidyaratne found four more skeletons on Thursday in the first mass grave uncovered since troops defeated Tamil rebels nearly five years ago.

‘The bodies have been buried in several layers,’ Waidyaratne told the BBC’s Sinhala Service at the northern district of Mannar, where the grave was found.

A local magistrate ordered further digging after road construction workers stumbled on a skeleton while laying a water pipeline on December 21. Ten skeletons were found initially.

‘It is difficult to place a time of death or a cause of death without further scientific tests,’ he said, adding 36 skeletons had been found in the mass grave.

Women and children were among those buried, he added.

Workers of a state water entity stumbled on the grave while digging the ground to lay water supply pipes late in December.

Digging at the site of the mass grave took place in the presence of magisterial and judicial medical officials upon the discovery of first 4 skeletal remains on December 21.

Police said in an initial reaction that the site had been under LTTE control for well over 15 years.

“It was possible that the victims might be those abducted and killed by the LTTE during their violent separatist campaign,” police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.

Police have not yet been able to identify the remains.

But the Roman Catholic Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, said the victims could be members of the minority ethnic Tamil community in the area, 312km north of the capital Colombo.

Mannar has a large concentration of Tamils, and was the scene of many battles between troops and Tamil rebels during the island’s 37-year-old separatist war, which ended in May 2009.

‘The general feeling among the people in the area is that these (victims) are Tamils,’ the bishop told AFP by telephone. ‘I am asking for an independent investigation to establish how these people died and when.’

Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said a judicial inquiry was underway into the mass grave.

It is the first time that evidence of a mass grave has emerged in the former war zone since troops declared victory over separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas in 2009.