Father for Freedom

In November ‘93, I witnessed the Yahappar Church bombing in Jaffna. I was praying and then I came out and saw one big plane flying around, and then it dropped two bombs on this church. They exploded and everything was smoky. So I went to see what happened ... it was one of the biggest, most important churches. In the church, there were lots of people praying side. Within two minutes, I walked and arrived there. One bomb was on the alter and one was in the congregation hall. The church was in a very bad state. Immediately I asked for a shovel to dig and see if people were alive. When we were digging, we came across a girl's dead body, Vennilla, and her clothes were all burnt off. We also found an older mother, she was alive, but one month later she died. We also came across a baby, who had no arm, and whose leg's tissues weren't there. We immediately took the baby to the hospital and did everything to help the baby, but they couldn't save the baby. In this incident, my heart was most affected, because it was a church and everyone had gone to pray and be uplifted, and then for them to die there, it really affected me. 14 people died...There were many incidents like this...For our people to experience this torture and such experiences as this, it only pushes me to do more work...

In the beginning, there were three main religions for Tamils: Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. But our history is all one, the same for all of us. Now we are all on the same journey for freedom...Of everything, what's important is that we're Tamil. I am a Tamil priest. Others are Tamil Christians, or Tamil Muslims. But what's important is that we're Tamil...

-Father Reginald