Page 72 - KDU Law Journal Volume 4 Issue 2

KDU Law Journal Volume 04 Issue II
September, 2024
observed to be untenable in the absence of credible evidence. On the contrary, it
is observed that the Government of Sri Lanka has provided relatively reasonable
humanitarian assistance to civilians entrapped in the conflict zone.
Keywords: Humanitarian, Assistance, armed conflict, Sri Lanka.

Introduction
The human species began to evolve gradually from ape into a more
complex species called Homo sapiens sapiens some 4.5 million years
ago. Warlike interactions are believed to have taken place among the
2
early hominines as far back as late Mesolithic period. Since then up-
to-date, the evolutionary history of human civilization is full of war
episodes. The first and second World Wars are the most devastating
3
wars in the human history. At the moment of writing this paper,
4
Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine are at war.
5
The main objective of this study is to analyze the allegation of
denial of humanitarian assistance to civilians by the Government of
Sri Lanka (GOSL) during the last phase of the military operations
against the separatist Tamil Tiger militants in 2009. The Office
of High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) in its Report
known as OISL leveled this charge against the GOSL.
6

2 Geoffrey Parker (ed), The Times Compact History of the World (3rd edn., Times Book
2001) 9 –177.
3 Joshua J Mark, ‘Warfare’ (World History Encyclopedia September 2009) <https://www.
worldhistory.org/warfare/> accessed 6 February 2023, Montgomery of Alamein, A History
of Warfare (1st edn., George Rainbird Ltd 1968).
4 Oleksandra Mamchii, ‘In Depth Comparison of World War 1 & World War 2’ (Best Diplo-
mats 26 December 2023) <https://bestdiplomats.org/ww1-vs-ww2/>.
5 Center for Preventive Action, ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’ (Global Conflict Tracker 4
December 2023) <https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/israeli-palestinian-
conflict> accessed 6 February 2023.
6 Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, ‘Report of the OHCHR Investigation
on Sri Lanka’ (UN Human Rights Council 2015).
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