shot dead by the militants as they tried to escape. The GoSL denied the population figures claiming only 75,000 people were caught up in the fighting, limiting food and medical aid, leaving thousands starving and without medical support. 7. I can not stress more the importance of the draft recommendation of this forum on maintaining census statistics, which are ethnically disaggregated and I may I add that these statistics should be up to date and made publicly available at all times. 8. This humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka was specifically caused by the actions of the then GoSL which pursued a military strategy to eliminate the Tamil militants showing little concern towards the civilian population. 9. It is questionable whether a humanitarian crisis of that magnitude would have ever occurred if the 300,000 people trapped in fighting were from the majority community. 10. Yet over over again, as in Sri Lanka, we see the specific minority dimension in conflict induced humanitarian crisis, ignored, undermined or denied. 11. In Sri Lanka, additionally human rights crisis was enveloped in a humanitarian crisis, as survivors in displaced camps were targeted for extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest, detention, sexual violence and rape. 12. However, even in situations where a humanitarian crisis affects a larger population, minorities could be specifically targeted for human rights violations. 13. The nature of a humanitarian crisis, the acute difficulties people face and the urgency with which agencies have to respond can at times eclipse human rights protection. This is not to say that humanitarian agencies and organisations don’t exert their full protection mandate, but it is not uncommon that it is deprioritised. Minority rights protection then subsequently becomes negligible. 14. In 2012, the UN released an very good internal review of their failures in Sri Lanka, where it admitted amongst other things that if it remained in the north it may have influenced the GoSL’s actions and that the Colombo office at times also downplayed numbers trapped in the fighting and did not clearly specify the targeting of civilians.