Lanka to issue absence certificates for disappeared persons

Till February, Paranagama's panel had received 16,000 complaints of disappearances of individuals.  

The panel's figures tallied with those of the local International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).  

Among the ICRC's figure of 16,000, disappearances of 4,500 members of government troops have been reported.  

Both the LTTE and the government troops were accused of carrying out abductions of individuals during the conflict.  

Sri Lanka has resisted repeated calls for an international probe into allegations that nearly 40,000 civilians were killed by government forces during the quarter-century civil war against the LTTE that ended in 2009.