Sri Lanka's Tamil leaders call for UN help on 4,000 missing
Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil leaders on Sunday asked the top human rights official of the United Nations to help determine the fate of more than 4,000 civilians reported missing in the country's long civil war amid the government's assertion that most of them are probably dead. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, met the chief minister of Sri Lanka's Northern Province, the arena of the civil war, which ended in 2009. Zeid arrived in Sri Lanka on Saturday on a four-day visit aimed at reviewing the measures taken by the island nation to investigate alleged atrocities committed during the long civil war that left tens of thousands dead.
Both the Sri Lankan government and the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels are accused of serious human rights violations. According to U.N. estimates, up to 100,000 people were killed in the 26-year war, but many more are feared to have died, including up to 40,000 civilians in the final months of the fighting.
The U.N. Human Rights Council last
Episcopal Council of Latin America : from Pius XII to Francis
(Vatican Radio) From February 12 to the 17th Pope Francis is set to visit Mexico in the footsteps of two of his predecessors to the See of Peter, Saint John Paul II who travelled there five times and Benedict XVI once in 2012. An Apostolic journey which marks the fourth time Pope Francis visits Latin America, whose Bishops are represented in a body by the title of Episcopal Council of Latin America and the Caribbean, more popularly known as 'Celam'.The current President of this body is Cardinal Ruben Salazar Gomez, Archbishop of Bogotà Colombia
Pontifical Commission on Minors concludes Plenary
(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has released a communiqué at the end of its week-long Plenary Assembly at the Vatican. Dated February 8, 2016, the statement details the focal points and proposals that emerged from the six Working Groups of the session, including a request for Pope Francis to remind all authorities in the Church of the importance of responding directly to victims and survivors who approach them, the finalization of a Universal Day of Prayer, and a penitential liturgy.
