Sri Lanka missing persons office to fund carbon dating to identify victims at mass grave

Sri Lanka's Office on Missing Persons (OMP) on Friday said that it will provide financial assistance to carry out Radiocarbon dating as part of its investigation of the human remains at a mass grave site found in north eastern Sri Lanka.

In March this year a suspected mass grave was found in Mannar when a new building was being constructed at the town's old cooperative store.

"Some 278 human skeletal parts had been found over 118 working days of digging at the site. They include remains of women and children," Dr Samindra Rajapaksha, Consultant Judicial Medical Officer of the General Hospital in Mannar, said.

The OMP will provide financial assistance for the Radiocarbon dating to find out the timing of the mass grave.

"The OMP will provide financial assistance to carry out carbon dating as part of its continued support to the investigation," the statement said.

Radio carbon dating calculates the amount of carbon-14 in bone and teeth samples and establishes the approximate time when an animal or plant was alive.

OMP Chairman Saliya Peiris said that it is imperative for the OMP to assist the investigation of the remains excavated.

"The samples from the Mannar site are to be sent to a laboratory abroad which specialises in bomb pulse carbon 14 technique, Peiris said.

It is expected that bomb pulse carbon dating can provide a narrower range of time periods in which the deaths occurred.

From December 18 to 21, the OMP had observed the process of selecting six bone samples for radio carbon dating at the Mannar mass grave.

The OMP came into operation this year with its mandate to search for and trace missing persons.

They can recommend compensation to the next of kin of the missing while also helping out in other legal formalities to trace them.

A government appointed probe committee on disappearances in 2014 said that over 19,000 people had disappeared alongside 5,000 more from the security forces during various conflicts in the island since the late 1980s.