Enforced Disappearances of Eelam Tamils in Sri Lanka Introduction Enforced disappearance – the state-sanctioned abduction of a person followed by refusal to acknowledge their fate – has been a devastating phenomenon in Sri Lanka for decades. The country’s 26-year armed conflicts  (1983–2009) between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) left tens of thousands of ethnic Tamils missing . Sri Lanka gained the grim distinction of having one of the highest numbers of enforced disappearances in the world , second only to Iraq. Estimates by rights organizations and the United Nations indicate at least 60,000 and as many as 100,000 people may have been forcibly disappeared since the 1980s. Most of the victims were Eelam Tamils from the North and East, who vanished during the armed conflicts’ three decades. This report examines the historical, social, and political context of these disappearances, the profound impacts on victims’ families and communitie...