Frances Harrison

Frances Harrison is a former BBC foreign correspondent and the author of ‘Still Counting the Dead’, which compiles survivors’ stories from the final phase of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

How the Office on Missing Persons is failing Sri Lanka’s disappeared

An examination of the OMP’s records reveals thousands of missing names and unexplained discrepancies in official tallies of Sri Lanka’s disappeared, raising questions of whether this truth-seeking mechanism has become another instrument of impunity

By Yasmin Sooka and Frances Harrison

/ 27 Oct 2026

How the Office on Missing Persons is failing Sri Lanka’s disappeared

Why did Penguin India publish Wasantha Karannagoda, alleged war criminal?

The sanctioned former Sri Lankan navy chief’s memoir contains potential admissions relevant to alleged crimes committed during the country’s civil war, and raises serious questions of publisher accountability

By Frances Harrison

/ 27 Aug 2025

Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda (left) receives his appointment as National Security Advisor from Sri Lankan President Mahinda R

Ranil Wickremesinghe in the hot seat over Batalanda torture site

Why I confronted the former president with the Batalanda Commission report during his Al Jazeera interview – and why Sri Lanka must face up to the torture, disappearances and human rights abuses of the 1980s JVP insurrection

By Frances Harrison

/ 21 Mar 2025

An old black and white photograph of two men in white shirts and ties crouching on the ground near a tyre. The man on the rig

The devastating poetry of Tamil women who fought in Sri Lanka’s civil war

In exile from Sri Lanka and marginalised abroad, women who once fought in the country’s civil war are almost completely silenced – but through poetry some have found a way to speak out, to remember, to protest, to mourn and to heal

By Frances Harrison

/ 14 May 2024

The devastating poetry of Tamil women who fought in Sri Lanka’s civil war