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Braving gunfire, bombs, and artillery rounds, a fact-finding team from Sri Lanka's independent Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies in early August made its way into Muttur in the besieged northeast. The army of the Buddhist-dominated country and Tamil Tiger rebels, who seek autonomy for mainly Hindu Tamil-majority areas, were fighting intensely around the small coastal town.

On Sunday, August 6, the team arrived at the office of Action Against Hunger, a French charity, to find the corpses of 17 local Tamil aid workers. Someone had carefully arranged 15 bodies, each with a gunshot to the back of the head, face down on the front lawn. Two more workers who apparently attempted to flee were found shot dead in a car.

"The sight was too much to handle," one team member told Sri Lankan media.

This year, the new fighting has taken more than 1,500 Sri Lankan lives and displaced 200,000 nationwide in the worst violence since 2002. Much of the fighting occurred in the northeast around Jaffna, Trincomalee, and nearby Muttur.

Near Trincomalee, Tigers cut off the water supply for 60,000 people. The army counterattacked aggressively, causing a mass exodus. A Methodist pastor in Muttur, Albert Suvarnaraj, joined villagers who were fleeing the violence by the tens of thousands. Speaking from a camp near Trincomalee, Suvarnaraj said he is still overwhelmed by the trauma of a 20-mile trek to safety. Persistent shelling, gunfire, and targeting of civilians caused a heavy loss of life.

Suvarnaraj told Christianity Today, "While we were taking rest in [St. Antony's Catholic] church compound, a shell fell on the courtyard. A child died in its mother's lap along with two others. I picked up the child soaked with blood. This memory still haunts me."

In another camp, a mother of two, Chandra, sat under a shade tree and described for aid workers from Seattle-based World Concern how her 68-year-old father was slain near his shop. As the entire community fled, there was little time for a proper funeral. His body was quickly buried, then she and her family escaped. "He was a wonderful father," Chandra said grimly. "Nothing can ever bring him back."

In Muttur, more than 300 people died and 50,000 were forced to flee. Anglican Bishop Duleep de Chickera of Colombo visited Muttur to assess emergency needs. He told CT, "What I saw was a ghost town." The bishop said the fight seemed to reinforce existing divisions. Minority Tamils fled to rebel-controlled areas. The largely Buddhist Sinhalese majority took shelter in a government-controlled area. Displaced Muslims found refuge with other Muslims.

During the conflict, many people left their homes to take refuge in local churches or schools. But such facilities were not spared. Near Jaffna on the far north coast, a shell landed on the Catholic Philip Neri church on the Allaipiddy islet on August 13. Fifteen people died, and many more were injured.

The next day, Sri Lanka's air force bombed an orphanage, killing 61 schoolgirls reportedly being trained to provide first aid in a Tamil-majority area. Military leaders accused Tigers of using the orphanage to prepare fighters, a charge Tamil leaders denied.

Later, reprisals in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, took more civilian lives, including one 3-year-old girl.

The staggering civilian fatalities stirred the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka to make a fervent plea to the government and the Tamil rebels. In a statement, the council said the two sides should "put an immediate halt to their hostilities and sit together and start talking to each other."

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October 2006, Vol. 50, No. 10