A group of relatives of people, who disappeared from Sri Lanka's troubled north during the conflict with the LTTE, today appealed to the UN to try and help trace the missing.
The small group, carrying portraits of those disappeared, had made the journey to the capital after a larger group were prevented from travelling last week to stage a demonstration.
They handed over a petition to the UN office here.
"Today we have come to Colombo as a small group to petition the UN", Sebamalai Emmanuel, a Catholic priest said.
The petition came as the government's human rights envoy Mahinda Samarasinghe left the country last night to resume Sri Lanka's defence at the on going UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva.
Sri Lanka faces a fresh US resolution against them which aims to compel the island to adopt measures to investigate alleged human rights abuses during the last stage of the war with the LTTE which ended in May 2009.
A similar resolution, which preceded last year, urged Colombo to further its reconciliation agenda with the Tamil minority by implementing the recommendations of its own reconciliation commission.
Meanwhile, the government claimed that thousands of Tamils in the north took to streets yesterday in the former LTTE stronghold of Kilinochchi against what they alleged the "scheming mechanism" of the UN and the international community to interfere in the internal affairs of the country.
They accused the international community of conspiring to undermine Sri Lanka's progress in its post conflict phase.
Colombo wants it to allow more space and time to achieve reconciliation as they claim that the government was striving hard to build a multi-ethnic society of equality for all ethnic groups.
