Aid to the Church in Need: Sri Lanka: Helping the helpless

Sri Lanka: Helping the helpless

Posted by Press release on 3/6/2009, 1:22 pm
Message modified by board administrator 3/6/2009, 1:23 pm

ACN News: Wednesday, 3rd June 2009 – SRI LANKA

Helping the helpless

By John Pontifex

CATHOLIC charity Aid to the Church in Need 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, with the government 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 an immediate aid package of over $40,000 for distribution by Bishop Thomas Savundaranayagam of Jaffna.
In line with the charity’s pastoral priorities, ACN has signalled 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 were now “totally kaput”.
The payment, agreed to 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.
Bishop Savundaranayagam 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 Thomas Savundaranayagam of Jaffna (Photo: ACN)

Bishop Savundaranayagam – who back in January carried out an ACN-funded undercover emergency relief operation in the region – has written 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 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.
He blamed the humanitarian crisis on both the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), saying that both 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.”

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 46.5 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org