The Navaly Church bombing refers to the bombing of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Navaly (or Navali) in the

Jaffna Peninsula The Jaffna Peninsula (, or ) is a region in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It is home to the capital city of the province, Jaffna, and comprises much of the former land mass of the medieval Jaffna Kingdom. The peninsula was historically ...

by the

Sri Lankan Air Force The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF; ; ) is the air arm and the youngest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. It was founded in 1951 as the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) with the assistance of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The SLAF played a major role throug ...

during the Sri Lankan Civil War on 9 July 1995. It is estimated that at least 147 Tamil civilians, who had taken refuge from the fighting inside the church, died as a result of this incident. The victims included men, women and children.1995 Human Rights report – South Asia

Background

On 19 April 1995, the

LTTE The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; , ; also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam ...

broke the on going cease-fire and blew up two gunboats, SLNS ''Sooraya'' and SLNS ''Ranasuru'' of the

Sri Lanka Navy The Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) (; ) is the navy, naval arm of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces and is classed as the country's most vital defence force due to its island geography. It is responsible for the maritime defence of the Sri Lankan nation and its ...

thereby beginning the next phase of the Sri Lankan Civil War. On 9 July 1995, the government forces launched Operation Leap Forward, which was the first stage of an offensive to retake the Jaffna Peninsula. This operation was already highlighted by the use of intense artillery shelling and aerial bombardment.UTHR Bulletin # 17
/ref> As part of precautions to avoid civilian casualties the military had distributed leaflets requesting local population take shelter at places of worship. For their safety hundreds of civilians had taken refuge in the Roman Catholic church in Navaly.
/ref>

Incident

The Church of St. Peter and Paul in Navaly (also spelled Navali) on the Jaffna Peninsula was bombed by a Sri Lankan military aircraft on the afternoon of 9 July 1995. Several hundred Tamil civilians were taking refuge at the church and surrounding environs at the time. According to Daya Somasundaram, senior professor of psychiatry at

University of Jaffna The University of Jaffna (, ''Yāpanaya Wiśwawidyālaya''; ; abbreviated UoJ) is a public university in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Established in 1974 as the sixth campus of the University of Sri Lanka, it became an independent, autonomous university in 1 ...

, the church was well away from the fighting. He termed this attack a

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

committed by the Sri Lankan Air Force.War more traumatic than tsunami
/ref>

Initial reports

The news of the incident was first broken by the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and ...

, which at the time was the only aid agency working in the Tamil areas. The ICRC helped evacuate many of the wounded by ambulance to the

Jaffna Teaching Hospital Jaffna Teaching Hospital is a government hospital in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. It is the leading hospital in the Northern Province and the only hospital in the province controlled by the central government in Colombo. The hospital is the only teaching ...

. Immediate casualties were given as 65 killed and over 150 injured, including men, women and children. Eventually this figure rose to 147 killed, as many succumbed to their injuries, partly because the hospital was unable to cope with so many casualties at one time.

Aftermath

The Sri Lankan government initially denied any knowledge of the bombing, and then claimed it could have been

mortars that caused the damage. The Commander of the Sri Lankan Air Force stated they exploded LTTE ammunition trucks or underground ammunition storage and that the deaths of the civilians were caused by secondary explosions of underground LTTE ammunition dumps. However, in a later report, the ICRC head in Sri Lanka, Marco Altherr, said that it was indeed bombs that had fallen on the area; he further included eyewitness accounts from civilians in the area, including a priest from another church in the vicinity, that also supported this claim. Eventually the government agreed to investigate the incident. The Red Cross protested in the aftermath of the attack. However, this protest was brought to a close after the members involved in the protest were summoned to the Foreign Office and asked to give it up. The Sri Lankan foreign minister

Lakshman Kadirgamar Sri Lankabhimanya Lakshman Kadirgamar, President's Counsel, PC (; , 12 April 1932 – 12 August 2005) was a Sri Lankan lawyer. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2001 and again from April 2004 until his assassina ...

denied that the armed forces committed the attack and rebuked the Red Cross for issuing a statement on the basis of "so-called eye witness accounts".

Government investigation

On 11 July, Sri Lankan President

Chandrika Kumaratunga Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (; ; born 29 June 1945), commonly referred to by her initials CBK, is a Sri Lankan politician who served as the fifth President of Sri Lanka, President of Sri Lanka from 12 November 1994 to 19 November 2005. ...

released a statement that expressed "sorrow at the loss of lives" and ordered the investigation of the bombing. On 18 July 1995, the military confirmed that the church was badly damaged but said that they could not confirm the origin of the bombs that destroyed it. In 2020, Kumaratunga admitted that it was an Air Force bombing, albeit a mistake, and claimed that she had criticized the Air Force for it at the time.

References