Cleared Church Grounds Allow First Religious Festival for Over 14 Years
Eight kilometres east of the 169-mile marker on the A9 in the far north of Sri Lanka in an area known as the “Vanni”, lies the village of Pullaveli. Pullaveli was the scene of intense fighting between the Sri Lanka Army and the Tamil Tigers during the civil war and as a result the only landmark remaining is the church of Saint Sebastian. The church and surrounding area has been inaccessible for 14 years due to extensive UXO contamination remaining after the fighting.
Parishioners from the church, many of who are still displaced and live as far away as Jaffna, were determined to celebrate a special service there, and planned it for June 2004. The event was expected to encourage in excess of 1000 worshippers.
An urgent request for assistance was sent to the Humanitarian Demining Unit, MAG’s partner organisation in Sri Lanka. MAG immediately deployed an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to identify, remove and destroy all UXOs in an area of over 15,000 square meters around the church and the approach roads.
UXO found on the first day of clearance activities in the church grounds
Because so many worshippers were expected, and because much of the surrounding area is still littered with UXO, MAG decided to fence the edges of all the church access routes to ensure that people didn’t enter dangerous areas unknowingly. Over 1km of roadside was marked off with internationally recognised warning fencing by one of MAG’s survey and fencing teams.
Fenced areas on the approach to Pullaveli
The festival drew an audience of over a 1000 people with many people coming from all over the country and one family from as far away as Canada. Following the ceremony, MAG’s Mines Risk Education teams presented a slide show to the whole congregation, teaching them how to live as safely as they can in a mine/UXO contaminated area.
Mr Arulanantham a retired principal was a regular member of the Church of St Sebastian. He was happy to be able to attend the church services after such a long period of time. He said that he is “grateful to MAG for clearing the site and giving me the opportunity to attend the church”.
As a young girll, Mrs Chandran, used to attend the church services regularly, During the war she and her family were forced to leave the area. This is the first time she has returned since leaving. Mrs Chandran said “the work the MAG deminers have done by removing the UXOs and the threat of injury was a credit to them all”.
MAG is responding to the needs of communities such as Pullaveli with the generous support of ECHO and the Government of Finland.
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