The success of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP) will depend on political will, Office of Missing Persons Chairman Saliya Peiris said.
Peiris was addressing a media workshop for Parliament journalists organized by the Internews yesterday in Colombo.
He said the OMP has decided to establish 12 provincial offices, including five in the North and three in the East.
He said the provincial offices are to expedite the investigations. Observing that there is still no definite or official figure on disappeared/missing persons in Sri Lanka, he said it could be the highest in South Asia.
“We believe that there should be a right to remember those who have been disappeared, and our office (OMP) will be taking steps to ensure this in the future,” he noted.
“We have received over 13,000 files from the former National Integration Ministry.
The files were handed over to the Ministry by various Grama Niladhari officers following a Ministry announcement to the public to submit instances of missing or disappeared persons. We are now going through these cases. Some may overlap with the cases we have already received through our own investigations,” the OMP Chairman said.
Peiris said tracing missing or disappeared persons is a long-erm process.