Identifying the skeletal remains from the Vanni mass grave begins

Siva Parameswaran

A court in the former Sri Lanka war zone heard that the process to confirm the identity of the skeletal remains exhumed from Sri Lanka’s latest mass grave.

The yearlong Kokkuththoduvai mass grave exhumation concluded on 15 July 2024 after 52 skeletons were exhumed. The excavations were conducted in three phases.

Speaking to journalists after the case was heard at the Magistrate’s Court in Mullaitivu on the 8th of August before Magistrate Dharmalingam Piratheepan, Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) Kanagasabapathy Vasudeva said the process was to find out the sex, age, height, and details of injury among others in the investigation.

“Out of the exhumed skeletons, 25 have been sent to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital’s forensic examination department and investigations took place for two days from the 2nd of August this year. The investigations will continue. The JMO’s complete reports are expected in six months”.

Mullaitivu JMO Vasudeva said the comprehensive report is expected by early next year.

In a report submitted to the court earlier, Prof. Raj Somadeva, the lead forensic archaeologist had concluded that the skeletons exhumed from the mass grave are of the female cadres of the LTTE who have been unceremoniously buried between 1994-96. His interim report on the Kokkuthoduvai mass grave to the court was submitted in February 2024.

He was certain that those buried in the mass grave had been shot dead.

Details about the report on the background of the land and observations were handed over to the court by the local government official, Grama Niladhari of that area said V.S. Niranjan, a Tamil lawyer who observed the exhumation. He was speaking to the local media after the court adjourned for the day.

“As directed by the court, a report was submitted by the Grama Niladhari of Kokkuthoduvai today. At the same time, it is believed the report by Raj Somadeva will be available in a month. JMO Vasudeva has informed the court that investigations into the skeletal remains are happening at the forensic department in the Jaffna Teaching Hospital. The Office for the Missing Persons (OMP) told the court their position about handing over the land to the public would be made during the next hearing of the case”.

Earlier the Association for the Relatives of the Enforced Disappearances (ARED) submitted sworn affidavits to court to find out whether the exhumed skeletons from the mass grave belonged to their relatives.

Prof. Raj Somadeva had told journalists on the 11th of July 2024, that biological samples to help identification were collected from the third phase of exhumation.

“The honourable magistrate informed that many sworn affidavits have been filed to find out the disappeared at this point of time. So, in future if there is a need to do a DNA test, we have made arrangements for the collection of due samples. So to say, we have planned to collect such samples from every skeleton exhumed during the third phase”.

Lawyer for the relatives of the disappeared V.S.Niranjan told local media a demand has been made by the relatives to publish in the media the numbers found on the dog tags containing the identity number of the LTTE cadres, whose bodies are believed to have been buried there, which would enable to .establish the time frame.

“We have made some submissions on behalf of the missing person. We also demanded the notes taken by the SOCO (Scenes of the Crimes Office) police to be submitted to the court. Also, we insisted on establishing the chain of custody. We also requested the registrar of the court to publish the pictures of the number tags and said it would be easy to identify the period of burial since the families of the LTTE cadres would know the details.”

Body parts of former LTTE cadres were accidentally found by the staff of the water supplies department at the end of June 2023 while water supply pipelines were being in Kokkuthoduvai, about 200 meters from the Kokkuththoduvai school. Along with body parts bits of clothes worn by those buried there were also found.

According to local journalists, the case regarding the Kokkuthoduvai mass grave will be taken up for hearing on the 27th of November this year.