Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka" in English language version.
Sri Lanka's government is one of the world's worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances, US-based pressure group Human Rights Watch (HRW) says. An HRW report accuses security forces and pro-government militias of abducting and "disappearing" hundreds of people - mostly Tamils - since 2006.
The image of the "white van" invokes memories of the "era of terror" in the late 1980s when death squads killed or forcibly disappeared 30,000 to 60,000 Sinhalese youths believed to support the JVP. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) says the "white van culture" is now re-appearing in Colombo to threaten the Tamil community.