Timeline: Sri Lanka Civil War
Up until the defeat of the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in mid-May, 2009, the Sri Lankan civil war had been Asia's longest-running conflict.
The roots of the war can be traced back to 1948, when Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain. The Sinhalese, the majority ethnic group making up more than 70 per cent of the population, had felt discriminated against under the British. To rectify this, following independence the Sinhalese began to pass laws favouring the Sinhalese language, the Buddhist faith, and other laws that minorities felt discriminated against them.
The second largest ethnic group, the Tamils, were the most prominent in opposing these laws. This led to several decades of inconclusive political battles and occasional violence.
By the late Seventies, the LTTE (also known as the Tamil Tigers) emerged, calling for a separate Tamil state to be achieved through armed struggle. In 1983, the killing of 13 Sri Lankan soldiers by the Tamil Tigers led to anti-Tamil riots where several hundred Tamils were estimated to have died. This incident is generally seen as the start of the civil war, which continued on and off until May, 2009, when Sri Lankan forces retook the last remaining LTTE-held territory and killed Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
According to the United Nations, between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed during the conflict.
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