A Sri Lankan family has stumbled upon the remains of at least nine bodies buried in the garden of their home, police said Saturday, the latest mass grave to be discovered in the country's former war zone. The family made the grisly find on Friday while clearing out their garden in the town of Puthukkudiririppu in the northern district of Mullaittivu, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.
"Remains of nine people had been found so far and the skeletal remains were taken for analysis by the judicial medical officer in the area," Rohana told reporters. The discovery comes just days after officials raised the number of bodies found in December in an unmarked mass grave in the adjoining district of Mannar to 80.
It was the first grave uncovered in the ex-war zone since troops defeated Tamil rebels nearly five years ago following a decades-long conflict for a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils. The final battles between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels were fought in the Mullaittivu district which was a stronghold of the separatists guerrillas for over two decades.
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