'65,000 missing from war, insurrection'

Sri Lanka acknowledged on Wednesday for the first time that some 65,000 people were missing from its 26-year-long war with Tamil Tiger rebels and a separate Marxist insurrection.

President Maithripala Sirisena's coalition government has agreed to address past human rights violations through independent probes and to implement a resolution by the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

"Since 1994 various commissions have documented that there are about 65,000 people missing or not found to be dead," Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, a former president and head of the new government's reconciliation office, told reporters.

Sri Lanka also said on Wednesday a certificate of absence would be given to relatives allowing them to temporarily manage the property and assets of missing people, to obtain provisional guardianship of their children and apply for government welfare schemes.

The Tamil Tigers began fighting in 1983 for an independent Tamil state in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. Their insurgency ended in 2009. Separately a radical Marxist group waged an armed revolt against the government in 1987-89.