Civil war engulfed Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009, with a death toll estimated by the U.N. at up to 100,000. The war was fought between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, aka Tamil Tigers, and the Sri Lankan state.

Civilians paid the highest price, in the form of assassinations, terrorist suicide bombings and abductions by the Tamil Tigers, and extrajudicial beatings, abductions and torture by state security forces. Under Sri Lanka's Prevention of Terrorism Act, countless more were subjected to lengthy jail time in horrific conditions, often involving torture and sexual abuse by their jailers. Families of those caught up in the dragnet faced harassment and worse if they took their complaints public, and many were shaken down for money to buy the freedom of their loved ones.

The causes of the war are many, but they boil down to the Tamil desire for an autonomous homeland free from discrimination by the ethnic Sinhalese majority that controls state institutions. Politicians whipped up an angry and resentful Sinhalese nationalism targeting the Tamils, while the Tigers tapped into the grievances of the marginalized. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers' leader, offered the dream of a Tamil state that turned into a nightmare for his people as their monumental sacrifices were for naught.