Sri Lankan Tamils remember relatives killed in the civil war...

Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamils on Thursday lit lamps and displayed photos framed in flowers of relatives killed in a bloody civil war, marking the eighth anniversary of the end of the fighting.

A Sri Lankan court barred activists from holding a commemoration near a monument to Tamils killed in the fighting, but other memorials were carried out unhindered in many parts of the country's north and east.

C.V. Wigneswaran, the chief minister of the Tamil-majority northern province lit a commemorative fire in Mullivaikkal beach where tens of thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed in the last days of the fighting.

It was here that the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels mounted their last stand against advancing government troops in May 2009.

Wigneswaran said a disproportionate number of soldiers are still stationed in the former war zone. Full story...

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