President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said necessary investigations would be conducted before a death certificate would be issued for thousands of people missing from the country’s three-decade long war, reports Colombo Page on January 24. Issuing a statement to clarify the certain International media reports which had said that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had stated that 20,000 listed as missing are dead, the President’s Media Division said in all these reports however, the crucial detail that necessary investigations would be conducted before a death certificate would be issued had been wittingly or unwittingly omitted. “Most unfortunately, these news items are carrying a misquotation to the effect that President Rajapaksa as having “acknowledged” that over 20,000 disappeared are dead. For the record, he did not make any such acknowledgement and nor did he make a reference to a number as missing or dead,” the statement further emphasized.