Tamil women plead with David Cameron for help to find missing loved ones

Women who lost loved ones in Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war today pleaded directly with David Cameron to intervene so they can discover their fate.

The desperate appeal to the Prime Minister was launched after he flew to northern Sri Lanka today to meet Tamils scarred by years of ethnic fighting.

Defying calls to boycott the Commonwealth conference hosted by the state, Mr Cameron became the first world leader to travel to the north since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948, heading for a face-to-face clash with the country’s president over the regime’s human rights record.

Mr Cameron was confronted by up to 200 Tamil protesters, mainly women, as he left a meeting with political leaders at a library in the northern city of Jaffna.

Some shouted demands for help to find their husbands, brothers and sons who have “disappeared”, allegedly at the hands of government forces, showing Mr Cameron photos of family members and handing him petitions.

As many as 40,000 civilians are estimated to have died in the final months of the regime’s 26-year fight with Tamil Tiger separatists, according to the UN.

In a face-to-face meeting, the Prime Minister is set to urge president Mahinda Rajapaksa to order an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes by state forces as the civil war came to an end in 2009.

Mr Rajapaksa rejects claims his forces indiscriminately shelled Tamils fleeing the intense fighting as the Tigers, themselves a brutal guerrilla movement, were defeated, insisting: “We are open. We have nothing to hide.”

But abuses are reported to continue, with claims of torture, abductions and intimidation of the media and judiciary leading the UN human rights chief to warn the country was becoming increasingly authoritarian. Mr Cameron has promised a “frank exchange of views” with Mr Rajapaksa over the “chilling” claims of war crimes and violations of human rights.

“There is the problem of human rights as we speak today: the people who have disappeared, the lack of free rights for journalists and a free press,” he said.

Canadian, Indian and Mauritian leaders have stayed away from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in protest over human rights. But Mr Cameron argued he could better highlight issues by being there.