2ND LEAD (Update)

Traces of torture surface, 5 children among slaughtered victims in Mannaar killing fields

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 July 2018, 21:54 GMT]
The human skeletons recovered so far until Wednesday at the premises of Cooperative Wholesale Establishment in Mannaar indicate that five among the dozens of victims were children below the age of six, based on their milk teeth. As the skeletons were found very close to adults in a cluster, the majority of the children could have belonged to a single or couple of the victim families, those who witnessed the excavations told TamilNet on Thursday. Further, the cut injuries sustained by the victims seem to have been caused by metallic objects with sharp edges, they also said. The latest findings come in addition to the earlier witnessed gunshot-like holes in the skulls.

The skeletal remains of one of the children were found lying across the bones of an adult, who has sustained a sharp cut injury on the right thigh bone, the sources further said.

The cut injuries are also observed in the neck bones.

So far, skeletal remains of fifty-eight victims have become visible in the CWE mass grave of Mannaar killing fields. The skulls and bones belonging to thirty-three remains have been fully exhumed and sealed into boxes. The excavation has gone on for 42 days.

In the meantime, 9 Sinhala archaeology students, including three Buddhist monks, from the Archaeological Department of the Buddhist and Pali University in Homagama, have joined the excavations this week.

The site of excavation was previously the building of the SL State-owned Cooperative Wholesale Establishment. The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka was deploying the premises since the early 1990s for military use.

Chronology: