Photographs allegedly showing the son of the former leader of Tamil rebel group LTTE before and after his death have emerged, raising fresh questions about the possible commission of atrocities during the Sri Lankan civil war.
The boy, Balachandran Prabhakaran, aged 12 years, was killed in 2009 at the end of the lengthy civil war. The LTTE, or “Tamil Tigers”, had fought to create an independent state in the North-Eastern part of the island nation for the Tamil people. This conflict went on for 26 years before their defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan military. At the time, Sri Lankan authorities claimed that Prabhakaran had died after becoming caught in crossfire during the final acts of the war, but new photos, recently discovered by a documentary film crew from Britain’s Channel 4, appear to dispute this. The first image shows Prabhakaran being held by the military, and the second one shows his body presumably soon after his death. Experts say that the number of bullet wounds, as well as the burning of the boy’s skin around the entry points, suggest that he was shot deliberately and at close range.
These images are set to be shown in a new film, “No Fire Zone”, which will be screened at the Geneva Human Rights Film Festival in March. The Film’s director, Callum Macrae, says that “the new photographs are enormously important evidentially because they appear to rule out any suggestion that Balachandran was killed in crossfire or during a battle (…) It is difficult to imagine the psychology of an army in which the calculated execution of a child can be allowed with apparent impunity”. It is hoped that the revelations contained in the film will help to re-ignite debate about a conflict during which up to 40,000 civilians may have been killed. UN pressure may re-open Sri Lankan domestic investigations into atrocities committed by both sides.
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