Could A Mass Grave In Mannar Be Connected To A 16th-Century Massacre?

In 1544, in the Jaffna Kingdom, Cankili the First killed 700 Catholic converts. The slaughtered men, women and children would come to be known as the Mannar Martyrs, and the incident has now inspired the 2022 trilingual movie ‘Praana’, featuring the late Darshan Dharmaraj. 

Almost 500 years later, the discovery of a mass grave in Mannar revitalised the conversations around the Mannar Martyrs. However, there was also new speculation: could the mass grave discovered in 2018 be of those who disappeared during the country’s civil war?