speaking the truth global news that matters. made for minds. this is. the continuing tragedy of. the government says tens of thousands missing from the conflict. but. for the families and for justice. the rising number of children suffering in conflict zones we look at the situation.

it's good to have you with us. 3 decades long civil war devoured some 100000 of its citizens and by the time it ended in 2920000 were missing but those missing. they are dead shouldn't cause a new president. said so last month his statement means the death certificates can now be issued to families of the missing something that is expected to help with legal matters but for the mostly families who lost so much their president's words mean little 10 years of waiting to hear what they most fear provides scant closure. has just a few chickens to provide an income in sri lanka the elderly are usually looked

after by extended family. but her daughter son in law and grandchildren have been missing since the end of the civil war i've been in that one and i know my son in law is rended just like many of the tamil separatists my daughter and 2 grandchildren went with him. the girl was to the boy was for them to this day we don't know where they are we're still searching for them one bit and. qantas ami also lost 2 sons a bomb killed one of them the other was kidnapped there's no trace of his whereabouts her husband has since become completely withdrawn he hasn't spoken in years. our forces fought for liberation but now the battle is over we're hoping that the president's anger will subside and we can see our children again. the president go to via rajapaksa has other plans he has declared all the missing persons from the civil war dead that means families will never know what happened

to their relatives. bacha paxo was defense minister during the final years of the war. the un has accused him of serious human rights violations such as kidnapping and murder. at a protest in the north of sri lanka these women are calling for justice to be served they say they've been ignored since the war ended a decade ago. they belong to the tamil minority that fought for independence for nearly 30 years they're still looking for their missing children and their children's children. i get it did we refute the president's claim that no one has gone missing since the civil war our children turned themselves over to government troops we've not killed anyone else on their site since the war but what happened to our children and the way but it didn't. then an army. bulldozer disrupts the

protest and tries to disperse the crowd since june of last year sri lanka has offered compensation of nearly 30 year as a month for each missing person the payments for the government are overseen by sally f.p.s. he says there are between 14 and 15000 missing people a number that the un strongly disputes the courts have yet to resolve a single case the law says if we feel. are not fine. we can now after consulting the families. for that matter to the prosecuting authorities that's what sandia acknowledged go to tried to do her husband a journalist was kidnapped he remains missing to this day it's the only case to have been brought before a court and it was subsequently suspended the chief investigator fled to switzerland and 700 officials from his agency were suspended after president rajapaksa took office. my husband park youth was kidnapped twice the

1st time was in august of 2009 he said he uncovered the use of chemical weapons in sri lanka to carry out genocide. acknowledged holds exhibitions of her husband's drawings to honor his memory she hasn't heard anything from him since 2010 and there are no signs he's still alive and someone has told a story of. some months journalist and author of the book this divided island which provides post-war salonga some of this really good to have you on the program with us now in writing your book you met many like some cross. did you get a sense from them that they really believed they would get from the government on what happened to their loved ones. i felt that there was a split kind of psychology working over here i think like at

a larger level everybody knew the kind of state that they were dealing with the reluctance of the state to divulge any details about the kind of people who are missing but at the same time it's human psychology and this is not this is about not just in sri lanka but for around the world in conflict zones it is human psychology to want confirmation of your loved ones see it even if it is a confirmation of that death so that in my eyes and i felt that you know that looking human part of them was still holding out for news of confirmation or some kind of signal that the government knew exactly what had happened to them you speak about human psychology and hope now that the sri lankan government has admitted that more than 20000 people who does appear are dead what does that do to these people when i don't know if it does anything i mean this you don't can government to sort of slack east made this statement without conducting the kind of investigation at least as far as we can see conducting the kind of investigation that is necessary to confirm these numbers you know to see if somebody is dead

without exactly saying how or when or why they died is not really any kind of confirmation that a human being looks when you're talking about their loved ones so you don't leave sort of invokes and provokes more frustration on the part of these people when they're just told this flat out without being given any more information i mean you say that no investigation that one can at least see was conducted that begets the question if the sri lankan government was ever very serious about sourcing for those who disappeared. it's difficult to know i mean when when my end up rajapakse our last election last time when the new government came into power headed by mike the pilot said a santa the government did so on the promise that they would conduct investigations not only into corruption in the previous regime but also into the disappeared that never happened they were given a full 5 years and they never really got that act going which was a source of immense disappointment and frustration due to activists to people who had lost these relatives and friends and of course a lot of boxes are back and for them to say that they would conduct an

investigation is to admit that they would conduct an investigation into their own practices which as we all know from governments all over the world is not something that anybody ever does so it's difficult to believe that there was ever a good state intention of investigating and really probing what happened to these people now you have the roger talk shows back and going to buy a bunch of bucks i was defense chief during the final leo's of the civil war and he was elected with a vast majority in the elections or in the recent elections what does that mean for sri lanka and sri lanka he ordered ones. it's plenty of they want to heal old wounds electing rajapakse i was not the way to do it i mean it's a good i'll bet i'll buy some sense was accused of 7 wall crimes he has somehow evaded all these investigations into his war record and now he's back in power and he is known to be an authoritarian leader and quite a violent one of that and so to have him at the head of the government at

a time when minorities are vulnerable as they always have been in sri lanka is a particularly problematic thing to happen you spoke about the minorities being vulnerable and it's something that you allude to in your book as well but i'd just like to know from you is true lanka an island for have a divided along racial ethnic and language lines. well i would hesitate to say forever i mean you know we have examples of countries around the world that have somehow made. made it happen you know how knowledge a fact of the ideas that's misty's and that which is the villages and just by that managed to survive as a functioning democracy that provides equal rights to everyone so so i would hesitate to say it but i mean that's to say to stick but secondly industries even the rajapaksa regime it's difficult to see how a man who was so dismissive of minority rights during his previous sort of stint at bi-lo would suddenly come around to the view that minority rights need to be

protected over the next 5 years i find that difficult to believe some months ago money and pleasure talking to you thank you very much. the brutality of the conflict in sri lanka it's children as well exploited as side soldiers by the time of doubles and also as victims of the war it's of it's a theme that extends to another conflict 2 of them is a report on the touted to save the children says it is one of the top 4 countries in the world of where children are living in a conflict zone nobili that number is some 415000000 children that's one in 6 children worldwide joining me now for more is of august on country director for save the children on off on mon and mr monaghan monem thanks for making the time we're talking about roughly 20000000 children in afghanistan who've known nothing but wall their entire lives how has this impacted them.

this is correct because it has been more than 18 years right now that the latest episode of the conflict that's been has been going on and obviously you can imagine that one as a child you are experiencing conditions of war and conflict for such a long period it's going to have an impact on you. your motion only and on your development as well with with the constant all of when you go outside as to whether something will happen. that are unexploded ordinance of iranians of war. laying about that can and can hurt you almost every family in afghanistan has lost a member of their family or friends or as in any way a form been affected by the conflict do you see hope on the horizon that things can improve. and what we always want to keep hope and of course there are

a number of initiatives that are that are ongoing it's not for us as an ngo to to comment on the on the political situation but of course we have hope for the next generation for the future generation of afghanistan that peace will come soon and that they will have the opportunity to to continue their lives in peace and without fearing for their lives and all for that does happen so on on off on london thank you so much for speaking to us. that's a phenomenon over to our web site the double dot com forward slash isha to this show online and for other stories from the region. now this image behind mean many where's the d.d. threat of violence. over on his phone since we leave you today with a look at life for a generation that's normal nothing. of. what

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a 2nd we want the whole picture facts instead of make ideas shift deliver us. from a measure to reality to cryptocurrency to your topics for live in an ever changing digital world let's talk a bit digitalisation. shift. on d. w. . the coronavirus is hitting the tourism industry hot across asia chinese visitors are critical for many results allies and. this is especially in thailand. the advice fails to profit from boeing 737 months prices and books an ugly lost 2019 a 3600000000 year old corruption penalty has finally hit the bottom are. also on the show the world's biggest mobile technology exhibition is cancelled concerns

over the coronavirus for the mobile world congress to keep its doors closed this year. place is business operates on today's asian and global business stories i gather office work on january and february are usually the top of the tourist season in thailand with beaches and major tourist attractions packed with visitors especially from china out of almost 40000000 arrivals last year a quarter were chinese this year many places are quite empty after china suspended tours abroad in response to the corona virus outbreak. the routine is comforting to pratt it too much i every morning at 8 he prepares his boat for the day the vessel can carry up to 12 passengers and ferry them from the holiday center of patani or to the island of kona are pretty tense 5 boats but for the last few weeks most of them have been going now.