JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Sri Lankan government has allocated 21 million rupees for the third phase of excavations at the Chemmani mass grave site, officials said.
The release of funds follows repeated postponements caused by a lack of financial approval and adverse weather conditions that left the site waterlogged. The case is scheduled to be taken up again at the Jaffna Magistrate’s Court on April 21, when authorities are expected to indicate when excavation work will resume.
Chemmani, a village on the outskirts of Jaffna, has long been associated with allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings during the final years of the civil war in the north.
The site first drew widespread attention in 1998, when a Sri Lankan Army soldier, testifying in a murder case, told a court that hundreds of bodies of detainees who had disappeared in the mid-1990s had been buried in the area. His account aligned with longstanding claims by families and human rights groups that large numbers of civilians went missing during military operations to retake the Jaffna peninsula in 1995 and 1996.
Court-ordered excavations in 1999 uncovered human remains, but the investigation did not lead to comprehensive identification of victims or prosecutions of senior officials, leaving many questions unresolved.
Interest in the site resurfaced in February 2025, when construction work at a nearby Hindu cremation ground uncovered skeletal remains, prompting a renewed, court-supervised excavation. Since then, investigators have identified around 240 sets of remains, including those believed to be of children and infants, making Chemmani one of the largest officially documented mass grave sites in Sri Lanka .
Despite the renewed effort, progress has been uneven. Excavations have been halted multiple times, including in recent months amid delays in the release of funds, drawing criticism from lawyers representing victims’ families and from rights groups, who say such interruptions risk compromising both evidence and public confidence.
The site is currently secured as a crime scene, with forensic work continuing under judicial oversight. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka has previously noted broader administrative delays in the disbursement of funds for such investigations, while international organizations have called for greater transparency and independent monitoring.
