Families of Disappeared to Launch Books, Mark International Day in Jaffna

Relatives of missing persons from Sri Lanka's Northern and Eastern provinces plan to publish documentation of their search efforts and will hold a conference in Jaffna on August 30 to mark the International Day of the Disappeared.

Families of the disappeared across the Northern and Eastern provinces announced plans Monday to publish a series of books documenting their decades-long search for missing relatives. The announcement came at a media briefing in Mannar, where the group also expressed support for a conference scheduled for August 30 in Jaffna to observe the International Day of the Disappeared.

The conference will take place at the Thanthai Selva Auditorium in Jaffna, beginning Sunday morning. Manuel Uthayachanthira, chairperson of the Mannar District Association of Relatives of the Enforced Disappeared, urged supporters of the Tamil national cause to attend the gathering. According to Uthayachanthira, families have repeatedly petitioned successive Sri Lankan governments and conducted numerous protests over the years seeking answers about their missing relatives, but have received no meaningful responses.

The planned publications will address different aspects of the families' experience. One book will focus on mothers who searched for their children for years before dying without learning their fates, while another will document cases of forcibly disappeared children. A third publication will chronicle the 17-year struggle of these families, including which authorities they approached, where they staged protests, and the hardships they endured through multiple changes of government.

The families' records account for approximately 17,000 missing persons across eight Northern and Eastern districts. However, they acknowledge this figure does not encompass all cases, particularly instances where entire families or villages disappeared without surviving relatives to search for them. Uthayachanthira noted that many relatives who continued searching have themselves died without learning the fate of their loved ones.