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International community must condemn the murder of yet another aid worker

The deliberate murder of Rev Fr Pakiaranjith, a Catholic priest of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)), on 27 September 2007, by a claymore attack on the JRS vehicle in which he was traveling must be condemned without reservation.

Sri Lankan military’s Deep Penetration Unit perpetrated this murder of a Catholic clergy while he was traveling to assist the recently displaced people in the Mannar district in the Tamil homeland. The vehicle he was traveling in was prominently marked with the JRS logo.

The JRS mission is to “accompany, serve and defend the rights of refugees and forcibly displaced people”. Rev Fr Pakiaranjith is the Mannar district coordinator for JRS.

UNHCR recently reported that 10,000 people were displaced by the recent deliberate artillery shelling by the Sri Lankan military. Rev Fr Pakiaranjith was traveling in a JRS vehicle to fulfill the mission of the JRS for these displaced people in Mannar when he was deliberately murdered.

The murder of Rev Fr Pakiaranjith symbolizes one aspect of the “military” strategy of the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL). That is to displace the people by deliberate shelling and then kill the humanitarian workers who rush to assist the displaced. There can only be one phrase to describe this strategy, “genocide”.

We express our deep shock and sadness at the death of a humanitarian worker and a religious clergy. We condemn this brutal act of the GoSL. We appeal to the international community to strongly condemn this and other brutalities against humanitarian workers.

27 September 2007

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