Silenced Minority Experiences on the 16th Anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Civil War
May 19th, 2025
Justice For All Canada commemorates the May 18 experiences of Sri Lankan Muslims 16 years after the war concluded. While an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Tamil civilians were tragically killed during the offensive in 2009, official state accounts and accountability efforts deliberately omit the history and the mass displacement endured by Muslim minorities. On this anniversary, we reflect on the targeted violence and massacres they endured and the continued pattern of state-enabled Islamophobia and discrimination they still face today.
In October 1990, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out the systematic expulsion of approximately 72,000 Muslims from Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. Entire families were forced to flee their homes in Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, and Vavuniya. Many were given only hours to leave with no more than a change of clothes. What followed was the overnight erasure of generational communities that had lived on the land. Sri Lanka’s national reconciliation mechanisms have failed to acknowledge this act of ethnic cleansing. There has also been no formal inquiry, restitution process, or memorialization effort following these events.
In the months surrounding the expulsion, the LTTE launched coordinated additional massacres targeting Muslim civilians. In Kattankudy, 147 worshippers were gunned down inside their mosque during evening prayers. In Eravur, over 100 civilians were killed in a single night. These were calculated attacks on a Muslim religious minority by an armed group asserting ethnic supremacy. The absence of accountability, both during and after the war, has hardened impunity for anti-Muslim crimes into Sri Lankan policy.
Seeking recognition of these events, Muslim survivors and advocates submitted testimony to the 2016 Consultation Task Force detailing the 1990 expulsion and its impact. They called for this history to be included in truth and reparations mechanisms. In 2020, northern Muslim leaders also urged the government to set up a formal return and land restitution process. However, successive governments have not acted on these appeals and their silence has been persistent. Notably, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) limited its investigation timeline to 2002–2009, effectively cutting out the most egregious period of violence against Muslims.* National reparations programs did not refer to mass expulsion either, leading Muslim suffering to remain undocumented and unresolved in Sri Lanka’s imagination of the civil war.
The official end to the armed conflict in 2009 did not mark the end of this persecution. Muslims have been subjected to repeated waves of anti-Muslim violence, often facilitated by Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist groups with ties to the state. In 2014, mobs attacked Muslim homes and businesses in Aluthgama and Beruwala after incitement by the Bodu Bala Sena. In 2018, false rumours in Ampara sparked another riot, resulting in more attacks on Muslim properties. Following the 2019 Easter bombings, organized mobs launched retaliatory violence in multiple towns, targeting Muslim civilians with arson and lynching. Security forces either failed to intervene or responded too late and no one has been held accountable for these attacks.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rajapaksa government defied World Health Organization guidelines by imposing a compulsory cremation policy for virus-related deaths, denying Muslim families the right to bury their dead according to Islamic principles. The policy was only reversed after international outcry and sustained advocacy from organizations like Justice For All Canada.
Amplifying Islamophobic rhetoric, religious and political leaders have also promoted hate speech with impunity. For example, Buddhist monks have openly called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and falsely accused Muslim doctors of sterilizing Sinhala women. Contributing to widespread fear and surveillance, the Rajapaksa government has used counterterrorism laws to arbitrarily detain Muslim lawyers, writers, and community leaders.
These patterns of Islamophobia form extend the civil war-era violence and the same political logic that drove the LTTE’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Justice For All Canada echoes the longstanding demands of Sri Lankan Muslim communities and survivors and urges the following actions:
To the Government of Sri Lanka:
To the Government of Canada and the international community:
Additional Works Cited
*Note: The UN’s 2015 Report of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka limited its scope to events from 2002 onward, thus excluding the 1990 mass expulsion of Northern Muslims, one of the most severe acts of ethnic cleansing during the conflict. This decision was based on aligning with the timeframe used by the domestic Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), despite the fact that many of the worst violations against Muslims occurred more than a decade earlier (Source: Page 6, OISL Report)
Justice For All Canada’s Sri Lanka Task Force campaigns to expose and challenge systemic genocidal crimes against humanity facing Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka using policy research, survivor-centered advocacy, and amplifying lived experiences omitted from dominant narratives.
Justice For All Canada commemorates the May 18 experiences of Sri Lankan Muslims 16 years after the war concluded. While an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Tamil civilians were tragically killed during the offensive in 2009, official state accounts and accountability efforts deliberately omit the history and the mass displacement endured by Muslim minorities. On this anniversary, we reflect on the targeted violence and massacres they endured and the continued pattern of state-enabled Islamophobia and discrimination they still face today.
In October 1990, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) carried out the systematic expulsion of approximately 72,000 Muslims from Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. Entire families were forced to flee their homes in Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, and Vavuniya. Many were given only hours to leave with no more than a change of clothes. What followed was the overnight erasure of generational communities that had lived on the land. Sri Lanka’s national reconciliation mechanisms have failed to acknowledge this act of ethnic cleansing. There has also been no formal inquiry, restitution process, or memorialization effort following these events.
In the months surrounding the expulsion, the LTTE launched coordinated additional massacres targeting Muslim civilians. In Kattankudy, 147 worshippers were gunned down inside their mosque during evening prayers. In Eravur, over 100 civilians were killed in a single night. These were calculated attacks on a Muslim religious minority by an armed group asserting ethnic supremacy. The absence of accountability, both during and after the war, has hardened impunity for anti-Muslim crimes into Sri Lankan policy.
Seeking recognition of these events, Muslim survivors and advocates submitted testimony to the 2016 Consultation Task Force detailing the 1990 expulsion and its impact. They called for this history to be included in truth and reparations mechanisms. In 2020, northern Muslim leaders also urged the government to set up a formal return and land restitution process. However, successive governments have not acted on these appeals and their silence has been persistent. Notably, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) limited its investigation timeline to 2002–2009, effectively cutting out the most egregious period of violence against Muslims.* National reparations programs did not refer to mass expulsion either, leading Muslim suffering to remain undocumented and unresolved in Sri Lanka’s imagination of the civil war.
The official end to the armed conflict in 2009 did not mark the end of this persecution. Muslims have been subjected to repeated waves of anti-Muslim violence, often facilitated by Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist groups with ties to the state. In 2014, mobs attacked Muslim homes and businesses in Aluthgama and Beruwala after incitement by the Bodu Bala Sena. In 2018, false rumours in Ampara sparked another riot, resulting in more attacks on Muslim properties. Following the 2019 Easter bombings, organized mobs launched retaliatory violence in multiple towns, targeting Muslim civilians with arson and lynching. Security forces either failed to intervene or responded too late and no one has been held accountable for these attacks.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rajapaksa government defied World Health Organization guidelines by imposing a compulsory cremation policy for virus-related deaths, denying Muslim families the right to bury their dead according to Islamic principles. The policy was only reversed after international outcry and sustained advocacy from organizations like Justice For All Canada.
Amplifying Islamophobic rhetoric, religious and political leaders have also promoted hate speech with impunity. For example, Buddhist monks have openly called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and falsely accused Muslim doctors of sterilizing Sinhala women. Contributing to widespread fear and surveillance, the Rajapaksa government has used counterterrorism laws to arbitrarily detain Muslim lawyers, writers, and community leaders.
These patterns of Islamophobia form extend the civil war-era violence and the same political logic that drove the LTTE’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Justice For All Canada echoes the longstanding demands of Sri Lankan Muslim communities and survivors and urges the following actions:
To the Government of Sri Lanka:
- Formally acknowledge the 1990 expulsion of Northern Muslims as a mass atrocity.
- Establish an independent inquiry into the expulsion and related violence.
- Facilitate the safe return and restitution of displaced Muslim families.
- Investigate and prosecute those responsible for mass killings of Muslim civilians.
- Ensure the inclusion of Muslim survivors in all truth, justice, and reconciliation mechanisms.
To the Government of Canada and the international community:
- Press the Sri Lankan government to meet its obligations under international law, commitments under UN Human Rights Council resolutions, and core treaties on non-discrimination, minority rights, and protection from forced displacement.
- Ensure that any international or multilateral engagement on transitional justice in Sri Lanka explicitly includes Muslim experiences of wartime expulsion, massacres, and post-war discrimination.
Additional Works Cited
- ReliefWeb: Briefing: Sri Lanka’s Muslim IDPs 25 years on
- BBC: Discrimination and harassment haunt Sri Lanka's Muslims
- Sri Lanka: Facebook apologises for role in 2018 anti-Muslim riots
- Guardian: Sri Lanka presidential election: buses carrying Muslim voters attacked
*Note: The UN’s 2015 Report of the OHCHR Investigation on Sri Lanka limited its scope to events from 2002 onward, thus excluding the 1990 mass expulsion of Northern Muslims, one of the most severe acts of ethnic cleansing during the conflict. This decision was based on aligning with the timeframe used by the domestic Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), despite the fact that many of the worst violations against Muslims occurred more than a decade earlier (Source: Page 6, OISL Report)
Justice For All Canada’s Sri Lanka Task Force campaigns to expose and challenge systemic genocidal crimes against humanity facing Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka using policy research, survivor-centered advocacy, and amplifying lived experiences omitted from dominant narratives.