Sri Lanka pledges to address the issue of missing persons at the UN

In a meeting with United Nations (UN) General Secretary, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised to take necessary actions to address the issue of missing persons (Economy Next, 2021), thus fulfilling the State’s international obligation, being signatory to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Sri Lankan has the second highest number of enforced disappearances in the world (Amnesty International, 2021) and has been one of the major concerns of the international community. This pledge of the President follows sour statements by the President to withdraw from UN on account of continued pursuit of war crime allegations against Sri Lanka (Economy Next, 2021). In addition, at the meeting, the President also agreed to pardon to Tamil youth who have been in detention, without being charged, for considerably long periods of time (Economy Next, 2021).