By P M Amza –

As Sri Lanka once again comes under scrutiny at the ongoing 63rd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, familiar questions concerning accountability, disappearances, reconciliation and the final stages of the armed conflict have returned to the international agenda.

The latest report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, A/HRC/63/18, continues to emphasise accountability, truth-seeking, institutional reform and reconciliation.[1]

Seventeen years after the guns fell silent, however, there is reason to ask whether continuing to frame Sri Lanka’s tragedy through contested aggregate casualty figures is helping the country to heal.

Perhaps the time has come to move the discussion from “How many died?” towards the more humane and ultimately more useful question: “Who were they?”

The Darusman Report and the 40,000 Figure

Few numbers associated with Sri Lanka’s conflict have acquired as much international recognition as the claim that up to 40,000 civilians died during the final phase of the war.

The figure is most closely associated with the 2011 Report of the UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, commonly known in Sri Lanka as the Darusman Report after its Chairman, Marzuki Darusman.

Yet the report itself was considerably more qualified than some subsequent references to the 40,000 figure suggest.

The Panel explicitly acknowledged that there was “no authoritative figure” for civilian deaths or injuries in the Vanni during the final phases of the conflict. It identified uncertainties over the number of people remaining in the conflict area, those who subsequently emerged, LTTE combatant numbers and deaths that may never have been registered.

After considering different methods of estimation, the Panel stated that several sources estimated there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths. Importantly, however, it also acknowledged that there was still “no reliable figure”, saying that a range of up to 40,000 could not be ruled out. It concluded that a proper investigation would be necessary to identify victims and arrive at an accurate total.[2]

This distinction matters.

The Darusman Report did not establish through a name-by-name identification or enumeration that 40,000 civilians had died. It presented 40,000 as an upper-range estimate while expressly acknowledging uncertainty over the actual number.

From 7,721 to 40,000

There was another UN figure much closer to the events.

The UN Country Team maintained an internal casualty-recording process. According to the Panel of Experts, its figures recorded 7,721 killed and 18,479 injured between August 2008 and 13 May 2009.[2]

The figure was admittedly incomplete. Fighting continued for several more days and the UN considered that many casualties may have gone unrecorded. Nevertheless, it remains important as a contemporary count rather than a later extrapolation.

Shortly after the conflict, The Times of London published an estimate of approximately 20,000 civilian deaths. This was not a count of 20,000 identified bodies but an extrapolation drawing on earlier casualty information and assumptions concerning a sharply increased death rate during the final period.[3]

By 2011, the Darusman Report was referring to the possibility of up to 40,000.

There is insufficient evidence to argue that one figure was simply doubled to produce the next. The more legitimate question is methodological:

How did an upper-range estimate, which the Darusman Report itself acknowledged was not a reliable final figure, gradually acquire in sections of international discourse the appearance of an established fact?

Accountability requires precision. Reconciliation requires it too.

The Household Enumeration

There is another important body of evidence which deserves attention.

In 2011, Sri Lanka’s Department of Census and Statistics conducted the Enumeration of Vital Events – Northern Province, a household-level exercise gathering information on deaths and other vital events from the affected population.[4]

For January to May 2009, the enumeration recorded 8,998 deaths from all causes. Of these, 1,067 were attributed to old age or sickness, 35 to natural disasters, 454 to accident, homicide or suicide, 6,858 to the category “Other”, while the cause was not stated in 584 cases.[5]

These figures should neither be exaggerated nor dismissed.

The 6,858 deaths classified as “Other” cannot automatically be described as civilians killed by the Sri Lankan armed forces. The enumeration made no such attribution and the category could include persons who died under different circumstances, including combatants.

Equally, the enumeration cannot necessarily be treated as the final answer. A post-conflict household survey has limitations: entire households may have disappeared, respondents may have relocated and information may have been incomplete.

Nevertheless, it remains an important empirical exercise. Any serious attempt to establish the historical truth should seek to reconcile this household-level evidence with substantially higher estimates rather than simply select the figure that best supports a particular narrative.

Missing Does Not Automatically Mean Dead

Similar evidentiary discipline is required concerning missing persons.

“Missing”, “unaccounted for”, “dead” and “civilian casualties” are not interchangeable categories.

A person unaccounted for cannot automatically be presumed dead. A confirmed death cannot automatically be classified as a civilian death. And a civilian death cannot automatically be attributed to Government forces.

Each proposition requires evidence.

This does not diminish the anguish of families searching for relatives. It strengthens their right to know.

For a mother who has waited seventeen years to discover what happened to her son or daughter, an argument over whether 20,000 or 40,000 people died provides little consolation.

She needs to know what happened to her child.

That is where reconciliation should begin.

Dhanapala and the Limits of Existing IHL

There is also a wider question arising from Sri Lanka’s experience.

The late Jayantha Dhanapala, one of Sri Lanka’s most eminent diplomats and a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, raised it in his evidence before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission in 2010.

Dhanapala did not argue that international humanitarian law should simply be discarded. He emphasised that its primary purpose was the protection of civilians. His concern was whether existing rules adequately addressed the extraordinary circumstances confronting a conventional State military fighting an armed non-State organisation employing suicide bombers and child soldiers and using civilians as human shields.“The rules of war as they exist today do not cater for that situation,” he observed.[6]

Dhanapala proposed that Sri Lanka use its experience to stimulate international discussion, involving the ICRC and international lawyers, on how IHL should respond to conflicts involving powerful non-State armed groups while retaining its fundamental humanitarian protections.

His argument remains relevant.

The question is not whether IHL applied to Sri Lanka — it did. The more difficult issue is how its principles should operate in situations where a non-State armed group itself systematically violates those principles and places civilians at the centre of military operations.

Sri Lanka’s experience could therefore contribute to the continuing international debate over the application of humanitarian law to contemporary asymmetric warfare.

Rehabilitation: An Overlooked Success

The post-war record also contains achievements that receive comparatively little attention in Geneva.

One is the rehabilitation and reintegration of former LTTE combatants.

According to Sri Lanka’s Bureau of Rehabilitation, 12,196 former LTTE combatants completed rehabilitation and were reintegrated into society.[7]

The programme included education, vocational training, psychosocial support, spiritual and personal development, sports and assistance towards returning to family and community life.

Former child combatants were particularly important. Children recruited into the conflict were approached primarily as persons requiring rehabilitation and reintegration rather than simply punishment.

This does not erase deficiencies elsewhere in the reconciliation process, nor does it answer allegations concerning particular violations.

But it deserves recognition as part of the post-conflict record.

Thousands of people who had taken up arms against the State were ultimately enabled to return to their families and communities rather than being permanently excluded from society.

That is reconciliation in a very practical sense.

From Numbers to Names

This brings us back to the present UNHRC session.

Instead of responding to international casualty estimates merely by rejecting them, Sri Lanka could offer a more constructive proposition:

Precisely because the numbers remain contested, let us establish the truth as far as humanly possible.

The 2011 household enumeration could become one component of a broader truth-seeking exercise. Its information could, subject to privacy and evidentiary safeguards, be reconciled with records of the Office on Missing Persons, death certificates, hospital records, IDP registrations, military records, information concerning LTTE cadres, ICRC and UN records, diaspora submissions and forensic and DNA evidence.

The objective should not be to manufacture a politically convenient number.

It should be to establish, as far as possible, a verified register of the dead and missing.

Such an exercise should distinguish civilians from combatants, confirmed deaths from unresolved disappearances and, wherever evidence permits, establish the circumstances of individual deaths.

That would transform an argument about statistics into a process centred upon human beings.

Acknowledging the Full Tragedy

A credible national narrative cannot be constructed by denying Tamil civilian suffering.

Tamil civilians endured enormous hardship during the final stages of the conflict. Families lost relatives, homes and livelihoods, while those searching for missing family members have lived with uncertainty for nearly two decades.

Their suffering deserves acknowledgement.

But acknowledgement should not require uncertain estimates to be transformed into established historical facts.

Likewise, the historical record cannot exclude the LTTE’s forced recruitment, including of children; restrictions imposed upon civilians attempting to leave areas under its control; or its deployment of fighters and military assets amid a densely concentrated civilian population.

Nor should the record overlook that approximately 290,000 people ultimately emerged alive from the conflict area, a figure relevant to understanding the overall circumstances of the final phase.[2]

A credible national narrative must be capable of accommodating all these realities.

Reconciliation will not be achieved through a narrative recognising suffering caused by only one actor. Neither will it be achieved through triumphalism or denial.

Proportionality and the Limits of Numbers

Casualty figures also require caution when international humanitarian law is invoked.

The principle of proportionality does not prescribe an acceptable mathematical ratio between civilian and combatant casualties.

The legal question is whether the incidental civilian harm expected from a particular attack was excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.[8]

A high aggregate casualty figure therefore does not by itself establish that individual attacks were disproportionate. Equally, a relatively low casualty percentage does not automatically prove compliance with IHL.

The military objective, anticipated civilian harm, precautions taken and information reasonably available at the time must be examined.

Numbers provide context; they cannot substitute for legal analysis.

From Geneva to Healing

The present UNHRC session should therefore be viewed as an opportunity to change the conversation.

Sri Lanka need not respond to Geneva simply by denying allegations. Nor should the international community treat contested estimates as established facts merely because they have been repeated over many years.

There is common ground.

Families deserve the truth. Victims deserve recognition. Credible allegations deserve investigation. But truth must also rest upon evidence.

Every numerical claim — whether originating from the Government, United Nations, advocacy organisations or media — should be subjected to the same evidentiary scrutiny.

Seventeen years after the conflict, Sri Lanka should move from numbers to names, from competing narratives to verifiable truth, and from truth towards healing.

The rehabilitation of thousands of former combatants has already demonstrated that reconciliation can sometimes achieve what punishment alone cannot.

Perhaps that experience offers a broader lesson for Geneva.

Sri Lanka’s reconciliation process should neither deny suffering nor institutionalise contested estimates as unquestionable truths. It should seek evidence, recognise victims, resolve the fate of the missing, acknowledge the complexities of the conflict and build upon the successes already achieved.

That may ultimately do more for national reconciliation than another decade spent arguing whether the final figure was 7,000, 20,000 or 40,000.

For Sri Lanka, the journey from numbers to human beings may be the most meaningful path from Geneva towards reconciliation and healing.

Footnotes

1. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Situation of Human Rights in Sri Lanka, A/HRC/63/18, 2026, submitted to the 63rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

2. United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka, 31 March 2011, particularly paras. 132–137.

3. Catherine Philp and Michael Evans, The Times, 29 May 2009, report estimating approximately 20,000 civilian deaths during the final phase of the conflict. The estimate involved extrapolation from available casualty information rather than a comprehensive enumeration of identified deaths.

4. Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka, Enumeration of Vital Events – 2011, Northern Province.

5. Ibid., Table 4.13, “Deaths by district, month and causes of death – Jan–May 2009”: total 8,998; old age/sickness 1,067; natural disaster 35; accident/homicide/suicide 454; “Other” 6,858; cause not stated 584.

6. Jayantha Dhanapala, oral submission before the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, 25 August 2010.

7. Bureau of Rehabilitation, Sri Lanka, Ex-Combatants. Official records state that 12,196 former LTTE combatants completed rehabilitation and were reintegrated into society.

8. International Committee of the Red Cross, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Rule 14: Proportionality in Attack.

*The author is a former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium, Türkiye, Ukraine and Saudi Arabia. He also served as Additional Secretary and Chief of Protocol of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs