NEW DELHI (UCAN) -- Two top Church groups in India have agreed to consider ways of responding to problems minorities face in Sri Lanka.

As a first step, the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) and the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI) have decided to educate their people about the situation in the neighboring nation.

They agreed to act after a Sri Lankan Protestant Church official updated some CBCI and NCCI officials about the situation in his country.

The CBCI is the national body of India's Catholic bishops while the NCCI affiliates Protestant and Orthodox Churches in the country.

The Protestant Church of North India (CNI) organized the July 17 meeting in New Delhi, at which Santha Fernando, executive secretary of the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka's commission for justice and peace, pleaded for help from the Indian Church.

Fernando wants Church groups in India to make their people aware of the issues in Sri Lanka so they too can raise these issues in national and international forums. The Sri Lankan Church official also wants Indians to press their government to intervene on behalf of ethnic Tamils on the island, who he said form about 18 percent of Sri Lanka's nearly 21 million people.

Muslims, considered a separate ethnic as well as religious community through their descent from West Asian traders, form another minority group, which comprises about 8 percent of the population. Majority Sinhalese account for around 74 percent.

Later speaking with UCA News, Fernando said Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka are caught in a war between government forces and groups that want to divide the country. Ordinary Tamils suffer but are too weak to respond, he added.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the main separatist group, has become weak now and "is fighting for its own survival," he added.

Father Nithiya Sagayam, secretary of the CBCI's justice and peace commission, told the gathering that Catholic forums in India would discuss the Sri Lankan situation. He acknowledged that making people in India aware of the issue is an urgent need.

CNI general secretary Reverend Enos Pradhan also agreed that Churches in India should educate their people about the problems "in our neighboring country." He told the meeting his Church has expressed solidarity with those suffering from the 25-year-old conflict there that has claimed an estimated 70,000 lives.

Reverend Pradhan, who also represents the Council for World Mission in South Asia, wants Churches in the region to come together to help the "suffering people in Sri Lanka."

Churches in Asia, he said, should not forget their "moral duty" to extend "our solidarity and prayers." He suggested they should ignore denominational differences to lobby and strengthen groups already working for peace in Sri Lanka.

Reverend Pradhan pointed out that Indians have "a special bond" with Sri Lankans, the people of both countries being bound by "geographic proximity, historical ties, and religious and cultural affinities."

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