Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Tuesday that Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has delayed the prosecution for past grave abuses, despite sharp criticism from victims’ families, many of whom have yet to receive proper closure for their losses.

Sri Lanka finds itself at a point of conversation within human rights circles as excavations take place in Chemmani, a location on the Jaffna peninsula. President Dissanyake ran a campaign to bring peace to the families of individuals who were victims of the enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings that took place during the civil war 26 years ago. The excavation has been delayed due to funding and weather, with the speed becoming a point of contention for the citizens, only furthering the distrust they harbor for their government.

From 1987 to 1989, tens of thousands of people were murdered, abducted and tortured during the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Since then, 10 different commissions have failed to obtain justice for the individuals and families who have suffered from these grave abuses.

The grave abuses that HRW mentions span over 100,000 deaths. The government forces used torture, rape, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances. LTTE has been linked to suicide bombings, summary executions, and the use of child soldiers.

Sri Lanka’s government has also not accepted the Sri Lanka Accountability Project, which allows the Office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) “to collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve information and evidence and to develop possible strategies for future accountability processes for gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law…”

Additionally, the Dissanayake government has not established the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP), despite President Dissanayake’s promise to establish a DPP in order to eliminate delays due to other governmental responsibilities.

The UN Human Rights Council, through the UN Secretary-General’s 2011 Panel of Experts report, has conducted several investigations that have revealed that extensive war crimes and other abuses took place on both sides during the civil war, few of which have resulted in accountability.

In August, UN experts began calling for more government action and accountability after 20 years had passed since the execution of the 17 humanitarian aid workers. This follows reports of torture and violence within the country’s prison system, resulting in 28 inmates’ deaths, an issue that local advocacy groups such as the Committee to Protect the Rights of Prisoners (CPRP), say is recent but has the same lack of government accountability that citizens have criticized in the past.