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May 26, 2016

Sri Lankan Tamils remember their dead

Ethnic Tamil people in Sri Lanka have been offering prayers to remember the thousands who died on the battlefields during the final days of the country's decadeslong civil war.

Catholic priests, nuns, Hindu priests joined hundreds of Tamil people since May 18 in Mullaitivu, the northern village where Tamil Tiger rebels fought their last stand after 37 years of war in 2009. For years, villagers were unable to mark the anniversary.

The war that began in 1983 came to an official end May 18, 2009, when the government overran the Tamil Tigers, an insurgent group that fought to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the country's North and East.

According to the United Nations, the war claimed the lives of at least 40,000 civilians in its final days alone.

(ucanews.com photos by Quintus Colombage and Niranjani Roland)

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UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia
UCA News Catholic Dioceses in Asia