"We are happy that you are here to understand the situation," said the Catholic Bishop of Mannar Rayappu Joseph, welcoming the WCC delegation. Mannar, in the northwest of the country, is a Tamil-majority district, half of which is controlled by the LTTE. There, the WCC delegation listened to victims of the conflict, including widows and mothers who described their plight after husbands and sons went missing or were killed.
The delegation also met Nicholas Pillai, head of the local government administration. He said non-governmental and international organisations were making a major contribution in helping civilian victims of the conflict. Among the churches' efforts, Bishop Joseph's church has provided a piece of land and contributed to a housing project for 400 internally displaced families.
From Mannar, the WCC delegation proceeded to Batticaloa along the east coast. There, the government forces have flushed out Tamil fighters from their strongholds during the past year, resulting in the displacement of more than 300,000 civilians.
The visit to the Vaharai region, recently taken over by government forces, highlighted the suffering war brings. Even houses built for victims of the December 2004 tsunami, which killed 30,000 people and rendered homeless nearly half a million, have been damaged by army shelling.
In Batticaloa, the delegation met the Inter-religious Association for Peace, made up of Anglican, Methodist and Catholic leaders as well as Hindus and civil rights activists. They are concerned over the international community's silence regarding the country's situation. "How many abductions, killings and disappearances more need to be recorded before action is taken?" they poignantly asked the WCC's delegation.
The Jaffna peninsula
Jaffna peninsula, in the northern fringe of Sri Lanka, is the Tamil heartland. More than 40,000 Sri Lankan forces are deployed to uphold the government's control among the almost exclusively Tamil population of half a million.
"Your presence here is a great encouragement in challenging times," said Methodist pastor SK Kadirgamar, president of the Jaffna Christian Union (JCU) who welcomed the delegation. The JCU is comprised of Anglicans, the Jaffna diocese of the Church of South India, Methodists and The Salvation Army.
