Serious abuses by both government and LTTE forces, which may have amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, escalated in the last five months of the quarter-century-long armed conflict in Sri Lanka that ended in May 2009. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and injured. Shortly after the war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa promised United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that he would address accountability for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Since then, however, the Sri Lankan authorities have failed to undertake genuine measures to provide justice and accountability for wartime abuses. Instead of investigating credible allegations, high-ranking government officials have repeatedly denied that government forces committed any violations, or even that their forces were responsible for any civilian casualties at all. 

A panel of experts tasked with advising Ban on next steps for accountability in Sri Lanka handed over its report to the secretary-general on April 12, 2011. Human Rights Watch calls on the UN to establish an international investigation into allegations of wartime-abuses by both parties to the conflict.