Inter-ministerial committee already appointed Committee to coordinate with ministries, relevant bodies.
The government is in the process of preparing a final list of missing persons during the final phase of war, with the assistance of the United Nations and several other parties, External Affairs Ministry highly placed sources told the Daily News yesterday.
“There are various documents with regard to ‘missing persons’ prepared by various parties on an unofficial basis and that has already created a lot of confusion over the matter. Several parties have come up with conflicting statistics and now the government is compelled to clear the air on this issue. That is why the government has decided to finalise one list with which we can proceed towards genuine measures in terms of post-war reconciliation,” an External Affairs Ministry senior spokesman told the Daily News yesterday.
He added that an inter-ministerial committee has already been appointed in this regard and the committee would coordinate ministries and other relevant bodies on this matter. The Daily News also learns that the United Nations will provide technical assistance to this process.
The matter has already been discussed during the meeting between UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and Acting Foreign Minister Ajith P. Perera. The discussion between the UN Envoy and the Acting Foreign Minister was held at the External Affairs Ministry on Saturday. “Much of this technical assistance will come in the form of funding.
There will be various officials and staff members working with this project and it requires a lot of funding,” the spokesman added. “Once this is finalised, it will be used as the main official document with regard to disappearances during the final stage of war.”