Bishops meet families displaced by war

Catholic bishops have met and arranged for spiritual and counseling assistance for families who have left areas held by Tamil rebels and moved to makeshift camps in government-controlled areas.

Officials from the Catholic Bishops´ Conference of Sri Lanka on March 10 visited about 40,000 people in 13 camps in four different locations in Vavuniya.

The government prohibits media and others from visiting the camps, reportedly making the bishops´ trip the first such visit by outsiders. However, some media have reported the government´s inability to supply those in the camps with basic necessities.

“Having heard so much about their plight in media we wanted to go there and see them for ourselves,” said Bishop Norbert Andradi, secretary of the Sri Lankan bishops´ conference. “Our humanitarian visit was to let those suffering people know that we are with them at this difficult moment.”

Besides Bishop Andradi, the bishops´ delegation included Bishop Vianney Fernando, conference chairman; Bishop Harold Anthony Perera, chairman of the bishops´ commission for justice, peace and human development; and three other bishops. Father Damian Fernando, national director of Caritas Sri Lanka, the local Church´s social service agency, was also part of the delegation.

The government has “requested the Church send some nuns to be with these people to provide counseling,” said Father Fernando.

He added that while the World Food Program has been providing these people with rice and lentils, Caritas has been providing chili, pepper, salt and containers needed for cooking.

According to Bishop Andradi, the government has initiated the building of chapels and other worship places within the camps. “Priests will be nominated to go there,” he said. “However our wish is that these people are able to go back to their original place and be able to live a normal life.”

The Church is also assisting displaced children at government-run schools. “Caritas is providing children studying in the schools with stationery and other schooling needs while arrangements are underway to provide volunteer teachers to teach at the schools,” Father Fernando said.

The bishops´ effort took place at a time when Sri Lankan security forces were saying they were within weeks of defeating the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). An estimated 150,000 Tamils are still trapped in a small patch of LTTE-controlled area in the island´s northeast.

The LTTE launched an independence struggle against the Sinhalese-led government in 1983, hoping to establish a Tamil state in northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The conflict has since claimed close to 80,000 lives.

Meanwhile, Bishop Emmanuel Thomas Savundaranayagam of war-torn Jaffna diocese sent a letter on March 12 to President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealing for an immediate ceasefire to allow civilians to get out of the conflict zone and creating a “safe corridor” to allow aid for those displaced. He also called on the warring parties to end the carnage of innocent people.