Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is providing emergency aid to Sri Lanka after an urgent appeal for help from a bishop acting on behalf of people desperate for clean water, food and clothing.
More than 250,000 people pouring out of the areas worst affected by the fighting in the north of the country are in critical need of basic help, and the government is struggling to keep pace with the demand for shelter and medical care. In response, ACN, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, has agreed to an immediate aid package of $35,700 for distribution by Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam of Jaffna.
In line with the charity’s pastoral priorities, ACN has signaled its commitment to provide long-term help enabling the Church to recover from the damage and destruction of the past months with the bishop reporting that 18 parishes are now “totally kaput.” The aid will provide:
Milk powder
Bread rolls and biscuits
Up to 10,000 bottles of water
Soap, towels and disinfectant
Baby clothes
Underlining the gravity of “such a huge human tragedy,” the bishop told ACN that the aid would be handed out by priests already at work in the displacement camps providing basic help, saying Mass and visiting the sick. He stressed his “sadness” at the scale of the human exodus from so-called safe zones in the Tamil area in and around Mullaitivu district through to Vavuniya, where the government is erecting shelters – 60-70,000 people to a camp.
Bishop Savundaranayagam – who in January carried out an ACN-funded undercover emergency relief operation in the region – wrote to the charity saying; “Thank you so much for your concern and readiness to help.” He continued, “There is overcrowding, inadequate living space, toilets, water, food and medical care….The government is trying to provide the humanitarian needs but it is not adequate and does not reach everyone in time. It is a sad situation.”
The bishop underlined the high number of Catholics among the displaced, saying that Mullaitivu, their home district, has a high concentration of faithful. In an earlier message, the bishop also paid tribute to the priests, saying they were determined to stay with the displaced people “till the last,” highlighting the case of Fr. Sarathjeevan, who died from exhaustion.
Bishop Savundaranayagam blamed the humanitarian crisis on both the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), saying that each side put military and political interests before the lives of the people. He went on to underline the scale of the damage done to churches and other Catholic institutions in the worst-affected areas of Kilinochy and Mullaitivu, adding: “I have no access to those places now – no people, no parishes, no priests, no churches.”