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"Any further prolongation of hostilities could easily lead the whole country into irrevocable chaos," the statement read. The church council includes Sri Lanka's eight major Protestant organizations.

"Violence has already brought and will continue to bring misery and hardships to innocent civilians," the council noted.

The fighting has virtually ended the historic ceasefire that Norway brokered in 2002. Since civil war began in 1983, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) have been waging a violent campaign for autonomy for ethnic Tamil areas in order to escape discrimination from the Sinhala-speaking Buddhist majority.

Sinhalese Buddhists account for nearly 70 percent of the island nation's 19 million people, while ethnic Tamils (mostly Hindu) account for 17 percent. Christians and Muslims account for the remaining 13 percent.

In total, the bloody civil war claimed nearly 65,000 lives and displaced 1.8 million people prior to the 2002 ceasefire. The fragile peace process has been steadily slipping back into bloodshed after Mahinda Rajapaksa won the presidential election last November with strong support from Sinhalese nationalists.

For weeks, the conflict complicated the flow of aid. The situation was most hazardous for the 350,000 people in Jaffna.

Some 40,000 army soldiers were struggling to maintain government control. Tigers blocked all roads into the Tamil-majority region. Jaffna residents were faced with an acute shortage of food and remained indoors due to a stringent curfew.

"We want to help the people as much as we can, but our hands are tied now," Yu Hwa Li, country director of World Vision, told CT from Colombo. "When there is no access to most of the conflict zones, how can we reach relief to the people?"

By late August, the first batches of relief supplies under U.N. supervision arrived in Jaffna via ship. The Sri Lankan army also allowed convoys of relief supplies to cross over from Vavuniya (400 miles north of Colombo) into the Vanni region that rebels control.

"We are glad that the government has now cleared U.N. agencies to carry out relief work [in the conflict zones]," Baptist leader Kingsley Perera, chair of the National Christian Council, told CT.

Perera, who is also head of the Baptist Council of Sri Lanka, said that the government decided to allow U.N. relief supplies to people trapped in the conflict zones after U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan spoke to President Rajapaksa on August 20. Perera said, "We were worried about the fate of the people in Jaffna."

World Vision's Li pointed out that aid workers are more cautious about entering conflict zones following the massacre of aid workers in Muttur. Li said, "As long as this war goes on, suffering of innocent civilians will only get worse."

Following the December 2004 tsunami, which took 31,000 Sri Lankan lives, international aid agencies, including many Christian ones, poured resources into the region. Li said most international charities, including World Vision, have suspended their tsunami relief and rehabilitation programs in troubled Tamil areas.

Li also noted that the government has banned transportation of construction materials like cement and iron bars into rebel-held areas.

Kathleen Rutledge, World Concern country director in Sri Lanka, e-mailed CT saying, "Pray for the children, men, and women caught up in this. This is not their battle—they desperately want peace, life, normalcy—and now they have been reduced to survival."

In the meantime, human rights activists have demanded that the government set up an independent investigation into the slaughter of the relief workers.

Anto Akkara is a journalist based in New Delhi, India.

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Past Christianity Today coverage of Sri Lanka is available in our full coverage area.

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October 2006, Vol. 50, No. 10