Forensic experts have found more bodies in an unmarked mass grave in Sri Lanka's northern former war zone, taking the total number to 80, an official says.
Judicial medical officer Dhananjaya Waidyaratne said on Tuesday excavations had resumed after a short break at the grave site discovered by construction workers in December.
The grave is the first uncovered in the former war zone since troops defeated Tamil rebels nearly five years ago following a decades-long conflict for a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils.
"We found more skeletons yesterday and the figure now stands at 80," Waidyaratne told reporters, up from a previously released figure of 36.
"We have submitted the evidence to (the) courts," he added.
He said further tests were needed to establish how and when the people died but officials have previously said that women and children were among those buried.
The government sought to head off concerns that Sri Lankan soldiers could have been involved in the grave, saying the Mannar area had long been a Tamil rebel stronghold.
"It has been revealed that the area had been occupied by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) for 30 years," until security forces wrested control over the area in 2008, the government said.
"The matter is under investigation," the government said in a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva last week and released to reporters in Colombo on Tuesday.
It added that Indian troops deployed on an abortive peace-keeping mission in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1990 also briefly had control over the coastal Mannar region.
Police have not yet been able to identify the remains.
But the Roman Catholic Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, said last month that the victims could be members of the local Tamil community.
