Sri Lanka counts civilian war dead to counter war crimes claim

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Source: AP

Sri Lanka is counting the number of civilians killed in the final stages of the bloody civil war for the first time, a leading defence official has said. The census aims to counter growing allegations of war crimes against the military.

The government in Colombo until recently had maintained there were "zero civilian casualties" in its final offensive against separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, despite a UN report that tens of thousands may have been killed in the military push. In August, the government conceded for the first time that civilian deaths did occur but they were unavoidable.

The defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, told a conference on Thursday that the count so far shows a very small number of civilians died through military action.

With the document near completion "it has been possible to identify by name all such persons (dead or missing)", Rajapaksa said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/24/sri-lanka-counts-civilian-war-dead

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1. BS report by war criminals