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Sri Lanka

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ June 8, 2003 ⋅ Post a comment

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Brutal Barbaric Attack On Unarmed Christians

Kaluvenkerni is a remote village situated in the East of Sri Lanka. It is situated in the so called “uncleared area”, that are controlled by the LTTE. It is predominately a Hindu area. This report describes horrifying experiences that the Pastors of the ‘Heavenly Harvest Church’ and the believers underwent recently.

Heavenly Harvest Church consists of 135 believers (about 25 Families). Part of the Pastor’s house is being for conducting the Sunday worship services.

On 22nd of May, 2003, a group of about 12 persons some belonging to the Administration of the Murugan Kovil in Kaluvenkerni, and some from the Village Development Council (Kirama Apiviruthi Kaul)* walked into the Heavenly Harvest Church (Pastor’s residence), and warned that if they continued to worship in that place they will suffer a fate far worse that death.

* “Kirama Apiviruthi Kalu” is a group of men from the village, hand picked by the LTTE and appointed to this council to function as an authority in charge of any and all of the development work of the village. Undeterred by these threats the Pastor and the believers gathered together for Sunday worship as usual On the 25th of May, 2003. While they were worshipping, a frenzied mob of over 500 fanatical Hindus came and surrounded the building. The members of the mob were armed with sticks, clubs and what looked like home made weapons. Then they started to pelt the Church building with stones.

While this was going one about 30 men from the mob took hold of the Pastor and dragged him outside and started to beat him mercilessly with whatever they had in their hands. Another group was standing guard at the entrance of the Church, preventing the believers from coming and assisting the Pastor. But some of the men who were in the church broke through the cordon and ran into the compound to save their Pastor, at which point the mob went berserk and ran into the church and broke the windows and with the sticks started violently and viciously beating up everybody in the church. No discrimination was made by the attackers as they assaulted the men, women and children who had gathered there for worship. Most of the men and women were beaten till they lost consciousness. The mob proceeded to ransack and loot premises, while destroying the furniture and everything that was in the church. Every bit of valuable article owned by the Pastor and the church were either stolen or destroyed.

Over thirty people from the church had to seek medical care from the hospital for grievous injuries sustained due to the beatings. Two of the victims had to be warded in a very critical condition. The pastor though needed to be hospitalised, left after being treated at the O.P.D. to see to the welfare and care for his flock.

Since the area was under the control of the LTTE and as the practice and custom in such areas dictate, the Pastor along with some others from the church, first went to the LTTE office at Kiran to report the matter. Finding the office closed they went and reported the matter to the Eravur Police who promptly went to the scene of the incident along with the Pastor.

When the Police entered the village of Kaluvenkerni announcements were being over the loud speakers from the Murugan Kovil, calling the villagers to gather at the Hindu Temple saying that the Police were coming. The Police seeing what was going on drove up to the Temple where they were accosted by an angry crowd asking them to leave immediately. The leader of the Hindu Temple told the Police that the Police has only one fire arm with forty rounds of ammunition and once they’ve run out of ammunition the entire village will start attacking the Police. At which point the Police realising that they were out numbered hundred to one, got into the Jeep to leave. Then some of the villages threw themselves across the dirt road and tried to stop the Police from leaving, while some others tried to forcibly pull the Pastor out of the Police Jeep wanting to pour out petrol and set fire to him. The Police some how managed to get out of the village.

That same night the mob went to the houses of all the twenty-five families belonging to the Church and beat them up and chased them out of the village. Their houses were ransacked, looted and their houses torched. They lost everything they owned, and fled for their lives with just the clothes on their back. The drunken mob tried to rape three young girls, all of them from the same family, who had the courage to put up a valiant fight and then ran out into the dark and hid themselves in the forest till it was safe enough to venture out and then walked all the way in the dead of the night to the safety of another church in the village of Kommanthurai where they are until this day not knowing what their future holds.

That very night the houses of Christians were attacked two brothers were dragged by the mob to the Hindu Temple and beaten till they were almost lifeless and were asked by the mob to renounce their Christian faith burn incense and worship their Hindu Gods. Both brothers told them “you can kill us if you want to but we will never deny our faith nor our God”. Finally leaving them for dead they left the place.

The following day while the Pastor and a few others from the church were on their way to the Eravur Police station in order to get advice as to what they should do to see their grievances are heard and justice is done, they were accosted by some LTTE political officers and severely reprimanded for reporting the matter to the police, and demanded that they immediately withdraw the complaint which they had lodged with the police.

At the time of this writing, mothers with infants in their arms, young girls with no change of clothing, and Father’s with no source of income to feed their families, are languishing at a church in Kommanthurai. Twenty-five families and their Pastor have been made destitute overnight because of their faith in Jesus Christ their God. Condemned as outcasts, and driven out of their homes, as wanders they suffer for their faith.

Please uphold these our brothers and sisters in Christ as they go through this extremely difficult time.

National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.

~~

Further to the recent email that we sent you ( attached below) regarding the brutal attack of Christians by a Hindu mob, we take this opportunity to bring before you an appeal made by the Heavenly Harvest Church to us.

The Pastor in charge of Heavenly Harvest Church has appealed to us to provide relief to the believers who have lost everything as a result of the recent attack. Amongst other things they have very specially asked for, � Clothing � Footwear � Bibles � Dry rations

We welcome your invaluable support as we reach out a helping hand to our brethren in Christ.