Colombo, Feb 13 (IANS): Sri Lanka's new government has ordered an investigation into all water wells in the country's Northern Province -- lying closed since the 30-year civil war period -- following charges that thousands of missing people lay buried in them, a minister said Friday.

Deputy Minister for Women's Affairs Vijayakala Maheswaran was quoted by the media as saying that she had ordered the wells to be re-excavated and investigated as residents in northern war-ravaged Jaffna suspect that most of those people who disappeared during the country's civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels have been killed and buried in these wells.

The minister further said that the existence of many such closed wells in the area where many cases of people disappearing have been reported have strengthened this suspicion, according to Xinhua news agency.

Thousands of people remain missing in the island nation, even five years after the Sri Lankan military ended the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.

According to NGOs, disappearances occurred on a "massive scale", especially between 2006 and 2009 with family members now urging the new Sri Lankan government for a speedy investigation.

Sri Lanka's major Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, also passed a resolution this week urging the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to investigate the war in Sri Lanka alleging that acts of genocide had been committed against the Tamils.

The new government has, however, rejected this claim, saying no genocide was committed against the Tamils and reassured that it would investigate the final stages of the war through a domestic mechanism.