United Nations panel slams Sri Lanka’s sluggish progress on enforced disappearances

A United Nations panel has expressed critical concern over Sri Lanka’s lack of progress in addressing instances of enforced disappearances, together with the efficiency of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP), which has traced solely a fraction of the almost 17,000 instances it has acquired.

In a report issued on Tuesday (October 7, 2025), the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (UNCED) famous the “excessive stage of impunity mirrored within the lack of progress within the investigation and prosecution of alleged enforced disappearances.”

The UNCED report comes a day after the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday (October 6, 2025) adopted a decision extending the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Sri Lanka for 2 extra years.

The report additionally identified that of the 16,966 instances acquired by the OMP, solely 23 had been traced to this point, elevating questions concerning the effectiveness of the establishment established to handle long-standing calls for for reality and justice by households of the disappeared.

The Committee urged the OMP to consolidate a complete and up to date register of all instances of disappearances, actively seek for lacking individuals, and guarantee accountability by investigating and prosecuting these accountable. It additionally expressed concern over the unintended discovery of at the least 17 mass graves throughout the island nation.

The panel criticised the restricted forensic capability of Sri Lankan authorities and the absence of centralised ante-mortem and autopsy databases, together with a nationwide genetic database.

It urged the Sri Lankan Government to strengthen the capability of related nationwide establishments to find and establish mass graves, conduct exhumations, and develop a complete technique for the search, identification, excavation, and investigation of such burial websites.

Thousands of individuals, principally Tamils, have been reported lacking throughout and after Sri Lanka’s almost three-decade-long civil conflict, which resulted in 2009. Successive governments have confronted repeated calls from worldwide human rights organisations and the households of victims to make sure reality, justice, and reparations.

The OMP was established in 2017 as a response to those calls for. However, rights teams have criticised the shortage of political will and sources allotted to the establishment, resulting in delays and a scarcity of tangible outcomes.

In current years, the UNHRC has repeatedly flagged issues about Sri Lanka’s progress on transitional justice mechanisms, together with enforced disappearances, prosecutions, and institutional reforms.