British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has been on a historic visit to northern Sri Lanka, has urged the government to show generosity and magnanimity towards the Tamil minority.

Cameron, who became the first foreign leader to visit the Jaffna region since Sri Lanka's independence, was mobbed by relatives of those who had been missing in the final stages of the country's civil war.

He met Tamil leaders and some of the victims of the country's prolonged civil war. He later went to the offices of a leading Tamil newspaper 'Uthayan'. Several of the newspaper reporters were killed during the war. Cameron is in Sri Lanka to attend the Commonwealth Summit.