UN says two of its employees arrested in Sri Lanka UPDATES

UNITED NATIONS, June 23 -- While the UN in New York still refuses to confirm that Sri Lanka has detained two Tamil staff members, the acting Country Coordinator, UNHCR's Amim Awar, has told local staff that the two men were picked up on June 11 and 12 "by plain clothes men, who did not identify themselves, and who were driving an unmarked vehicle."

We understand that their families have not been officially informed. Under Sri Lankan Law, Emergency Regulation 20 (9) when a person is taken into custody, a receipt should be issued to family members or accompanying person acknowledging the arrest / detention.

UNITED NATIONS, June 19 -- Two UN staff members were disappeared by the Sri Lankan government six days ago in Vavuniya. For days, the UN said nothing.

Those disappeared served as drivers for the UN Office of Project Services and UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency.

   After some inquiries, the UN belatedly announced that two staff had been arrested, leading to short articles in the Indian and Canadian press, neither of which included the staff members' names. They are Kandasamy "Saundi" Saundrarajan of UNOPS and N. Charles Raveendran of UNHCR. They are Tamils.

Subj: 2 UN Staff abducted 4 days ago and now believed to be tortured by Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence - Pls Help to Release them

From: [Name withheld for fear of retaliation or worse]
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Sent: 6/19/2009

Dear Matthew,

We write this email in desperation seeking your help to put more pressure on Sri Lankan Authorities and release 2 United Nations Staff ( I from UNOPS and 1 from UNHCR ) abducted by Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence Officials in Vavuniya four days ago and currently detained. We have tried all the possible escalations within UN, including an urgent message to our Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon but nothing has helped so far.

We reliably learn that they are now being detained and tortured at a Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence interrogation camp in Kurumankadu, Vavuniya and since it is weekend no one is taking it serious & taking some bold action for their release or access to them & ensure they are safe.

In our May30th Sit Report, our ground officers have highlighted the wide spread abductions and accounted for more than 13,310 missing people in Vavuniya IDP Camps, compared to the previous count. But our higher management in Colombo and Geneva has decided to downplay it and reported it as, “decrease is associated with double counting. Additional verification is required”. They never initiated a project for additional verification. Now we feel the pain of abduction when two of our colleagues are abducted.

We don’t know when we will see our colleagues again and the same smile ... please help.

Due to security issues we cant talk on phone and sending this email with great difficulty & hope you will understand it.

Thanks in advance.

Concerned UN Staff, Sri Lanka

COLOMBO (AFP) — The United Nations said on Saturday that two of its employees working among tens of thousands of war-displaced civilians had been arrested by Sri Lankan authorities.

The two men, both ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils, were reported missing eight days ago and were subsequently discovered to have been taken into custody by Sri Lankan officials, the UN office in Colombo said in a statement.

"We are not aware which, if any, charges have been laid, and nor are we aware of the details of any accusations," the statement said.

The two men were working for the UN refugee agency and the UN office for Project Services in the northern region of Vavuniya.

Human rights organisations have reported that thousands of Tamils had been taken from the state-run camps for people displaced by the recently ended war between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels.