OMP mandated to listen to all missing persons: OMP Chairman

OMP Chairman President’s Counsel Saliya Pieris said that MIAs of the military were very much a part of the OMP’s programs and investigations into the forced disappearances and missing during the conflict.

The OMP, which is established under the Office on Missing Persons Act following the directive of President Maithripala Sirisena as Minister of National Integration and Reconciliation, has the mandate to provide appropriate mechanisms for searching and tracing missing persons and to clarify the circumstances in which such persons went missing and their fate.

“Following our written submissions to the tri-forces commanders, we have obtained the lists of MIAs in their forces. They are an important part of our investigation process,” he said, adding that the OMP had got a good response from the families of missing persons of the Armed Forces who participated at the OMP’s outreach program in Kurunegala.

Pieris said that the families of the MIAs of the armed forces could also join the OMP at its recently-opened Matara office to submit information of their loved ones who went missing during the 30 years of war.

The OMP Chairman assured that there was no discrimination for those who step into the office to report about their missing loved ones.

“We look into each complaint and give equal attention to all – whether the complainants are from the armed forces or those from the north and the east. We consider everyone who is missing as a part of our mandate and there is no distinction between anyone. Every case is important for us under our mandate,” he noted.

However, he said that the OMP would go into details when recording statements from the close relatives of the missing persons in the north and the east as most of did not have the required documents to prove the authenticity as they have lost most of their identification documents during the war.

“But when it comes to MIAs in the armed forces, they have their official recruitment numbers in their respective forces and this makes us to find out their personnel details easy,” Pieris said 

According to Pieris, the OMP will look into the possibility of reaching out to elderly parents who are unable to visit its regional offices. “We will probably see how best we can reach them as most of the parents of the MIAs in the military are very old,” he said.