IndiaToday: Lanka war crimes - War survivors relive horror of Sri Lanka's killing fields
The closing stages of the Sri Lankan civil war were a story of extreme brutality against civilians by the army. Despite being widely documented, Colombo remains in denial about atrocities on Tamils in the country's north and the east. The survivors of the war still live in fear, in one of the most densely militarised zones of the world, devoid of any hope of ever getting justice. Headlines Today correspondent Priyamvatha travelled (undercover) to Vanni, the former stronghold of the Tamil Tiger rebels in north Sri Lanka, to unravel the facts behind the claims and counterclaims in the land that was witness to one of the worst war crimes committed on civilians anywhere in the world. As Headlines Today reached the Vanni region, it was swarming with soldiers of the Sri Lankan army, made up almost entirely of the majority Sinhalas. There was a soldier on patrol every few meters and there was a check post on every 100 meters. The army has built major military cantonments across the Vanni on land mostly forcefully acquired from the local Tamil population in what has been recognised in some quarters as the core of the Tamil Homeland.