In the red earth of Jaffna, a cremation ground expansion has returned the dead to the living — 572 skeletal remains, including children, surfacing from a silence that lasted decades. The discovery at Chemmani, northern Sri Lanka, is now believed to be the country's largest mass grave, its contents bearing witness to the enforced disappearances that haunted the final years of a 26-year civil war. For the roughly 23,000 families still waiting to learn what became of those who vanished, the unearthing is neither resolution nor relief — it is the wound reopening, and the long, uncertain work of re
Sri Lanka's largest mass grave reopens civil war wounds, testing path to justice
572 people, including children and infants, were unlawfully killed and buried; approximately 23,000 people remain missing from the civil war, with families still seeking answers about disappeared loved ones.