September 03, Colombo (LNW): Sri Lanka’s efforts to investigate and prosecute some of the country’s most serious human rights violations remain far too slow, according to a new assessment by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has called on the government to demonstrate a stronger commitment to accountability.
In its latest report, released on Tuesday, the organisation said President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s administration had made progress in reopening several investigations that had previously stalled, but warned that many high-profile cases involving killings, disappearances and attacks on journalists remained unresolved.
HRW is urging the United Nations and countries represented on the UN Human Rights Council to press Colombo to take meaningful steps towards prosecuting those responsible and to co-operate more fully with international efforts aimed at preserving evidence of past abuses.
The 49-page report examines seven prominent cases and assesses the government’s record since taking office in 2024. It concludes that while some investigations have moved forward, Sri Lanka continues to struggle with a longstanding culture of impunity.
Among the cases receiving renewed attention are the 2009 killing of newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, the disappearance of journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda in 2010, and the disappearance of 11 young men who were allegedly detained by naval intelligence personnel in 2008 and 2009.
The investigation into the Easter Sunday bombings of 2019 has also gained momentum. The attacks, which killed 269 people, have been the subject of renewed scrutiny over allegations of a wider conspiracy involving individuals linked to the security establishment. Former military intelligence officer Suresh Sallay was arrested in February 2026 over alleged links to an Islamist group accused of involvement in the attacks. In June, a court imposed a foreign travel ban on former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and two other military intelligence officers as the investigation continued.
However, HRW said progress in these cases should not obscure the lack of movement in other longstanding investigations.
The organisation highlighted the killing of five Tamil students in 2006 and the massacre of 17 employees of French humanitarian organisation Action Contre la Faim in the same year. Despite the passage of two decades, no individuals have been arrested or prosecuted in connection with those killings.
The report also raises concerns over the fate of people who disappeared during Sri Lanka’s past conflicts. Tens of thousands of people were killed, abducted, tortured or forcibly disappeared during the Marxist insurgency of 1987-89 and the civil war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in 2009.
The discovery and excavation of mass graves has brought renewed attention to the issue. At Chemmani, near Jaffna, the remains of 582 people have reportedly been recovered. Yet questions remain over the identities of the victims and the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
For relatives of the missing, the excavations are only the beginning of the search for justice.
“Excavations alone will not provide justice,” one family member of a disappeared person in Jaffna told HRW, questioning whether those responsible would ultimately face accountability.
Sri Lanka’s difficulties in pursuing past abuses are not new. Successive governments have established more than 10 commissions since the 1990s to investigate alleged violations, but these initiatives have generally failed to result in criminal prosecutions or definitive answers for families searching for disappeared relatives.
HRW said previous administrations had, at times, either failed to advance investigations or actively interfered with criminal proceedings.
The Dissanayake government has also yet to establish the proposed Directorate of Public Prosecution, which was intended to provide an independent mechanism for pursuing cases involving past abuses. Colombo has additionally declined to accept the Sri Lanka Accountability Project, a UN-backed mechanism created to collect and preserve evidence relating to serious human rights violations.
Instead, the government has continued with institutions established by earlier administrations, including the Office on Missing Persons and the Office for Reparations. HRW noted that many victims’ families remain sceptical of these mechanisms, arguing that they can become substitutes for prosecutions rather than pathways towards genuine accountability.
The UN has played a central role in documenting alleged abuses in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war. Reports produced by UN experts and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights have recorded allegations of serious violations by both government forces and the LTTE, while successive Human Rights Council resolutions have called for credible accountability measures.
Lucy McKernan, Human Rights Watch’s director for the UN Human Rights Council, said the current administration had an opportunity to distance itself from decades of political interference and inaction.
She said the government needed to move beyond promises and demonstrate that investigations into historic crimes would lead to credible accountability.
HRW has called on the Human Rights Council and the UN human rights office to continue monitoring Sri Lanka’s progress and to maintain pressure on the government over unresolved cases.
For families who have spent years seeking information about missing relatives or justice for murdered loved ones, the central question remains unchanged: whether the latest investigations will finally lead beyond inquiries and evidence-gathering to prosecutions and answers.
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