As a month had passed since the incident, the churches decided to resettle the believers in a neighboring area. On Friday the 20th of July a mob attacked these believers with clubs and knives and five are admitted in hospital with serious stab wounds. There are several others who are being treated, having been beaten by clubs and poles. The authorities concerned are showing a blind eye to this problem. These Christian refugees need urgent food supplies, medicine and shelter. This is the second attack on them.

At the middle of the month of May the villagers gathered in the Hindu temple and passed a resolution against the Christians - that they should leave the village. Following this they took three Christian families to the temple and forcibly put "holy ash" on them. They then summoned a number of other illiterate Christian men to come to the temple and sign a document, which the temple authorities read in public. The document stated that these men had agreed to leave the village.

When the women heard about this incident, a group of seven women went to the local office of the Tamil freedom fighters (known as the LTTE) in the neighboring village, as this area is controlled by the Hindu insurgents, and made a complaint to them for remedy. In the meantime the villagers had given these Christians the June 15th deadline to leave. Subsequently The Young men's Hindu Association leader visited this village and aggravated the situation.

On the 12th of June the EASL [Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka] made a written complaint to the LTTE area leader. On the night 15th of June a mob went to these believer's homes (They were members of two churches, the Foursquare congregation and the Assemblies of God, and assaulted them and chased them from the village. This went going on from 9 PM until 1:00 in the morning; people had no time to pick up their belongings, nor their clothing, and some were forced to run naked. They spent the night in the jungles with their small babies and crossed over to the army border the following day into the government controlled area and arrived at the village of Valaichenai.

The EASL made complaints to the army, police, local authorities, as well as to the higher authorities of the LTTE.

In another incident on the night of June 16th at Arumaugathan Kudiyiruppu a village 6 km away, a church building which was partly built was attacked and ruined by a mob of people. Please pray for this church building to be erected without any further problems.

(Report provided by the Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka; from the WEF Religious Liberty Commission E-mail Conference)