By James A. Mitchell, VeAhavta Press Officer

Fighting over a water supply point between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) continues in Muttur; both sides of the conflict claimed credit for reopening the water gates while thousands of displaced civilians struggled to find shelter, food and medical attention.
The seeming return to civil war ignited in late July, and lead to more than a week of military conflict, with most of the activity in Muttur. The attacks spread -- and could be heard -- for miles around. The orphan children, elders and staff of Grace Care Center and Mercy Home patiently waited out the days of war and dared to hope for peace.
Rev. Dr. S. Jeyanesan, VeAhavta's overseas agent, said the situation was tense last week throughout the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Jeyanesan cited the number of fatalities reported, and said, "These are all lives, not numbers," and that those who were able to help were trying to approach the Muttur area with food and medicine. "We really do not know the numbers of injured and the refugee population," Jeyanesan said.
By Wednesday, Aug. 9, those numbers were still being counted; each, as Jeyanesan said, a human life and not simply a statistic. In nearby Kantale, aid workers estimated that more than 30,000 refugees had sought assistance, and were being sheltered wherever possible. One school designed for a student population of 300 was housing more than 6,000 people forced to evacuate from Muttur.
Others have gone to Trincomalee. Two local schools told the staff at Grace Care Center that they are housing refugeess -- a thousand families each. Arrangements were being made to make use of the Mercy Home mobile clinic to help injured survivors needing medical attention, and an offer was made through Grace Pastor, Rev. Joseph Gnanapragasam from the former Internally Displaced Persons camp families adjacent to the orphanage -- now living in Korean-built homes on a nearby hill -- to provide portions of the day's fish catch to refugees from Muttur.
While survivors in the troubled region -- scarred by two decades of civil war and further beaten by the Dec. 26, 2004 tsunami -- struggled, again, to rebuild their lives, political fallout from the conflict between the warring parties remains to be seen. Accusations Wednesday by the LTTE that the GoSL killed five civilians and wounded another 18 followed the weekend discovery of 17 slain relief workers serving the French-based agency, Action Against Hunger; among the victims, all but one Muslim were Tamil. They were reportedly killed by close-range gunfire, and agencies from throughout the world have called for an investigation.
At Grace Care Center, the routine was, again, interrupted, and weekend projects included the repainting of flower pots in the Children's Park, dedicated in the ideal that, "True peace allows children the freedom to be children."
Erin Whaley, a schoolteacher from Michigan and VeAhavta volunteer, supervised the party, and reported that the activity truly brought out the nature of the girls, given a chance to play as children.
"They started out beautifully and ended up getting paint on several things that weren't supposed to be painted," Whaley said, "just like real kids! The next painting party began with 'un-painting' a few things."
By Monday, school had cautiously reopened, again, and until Wednesday, the balance of war seemed to be favoring peace, at least briefly. The LTTE claimed to have reopened the water gate; the GoSL said they had reclaimed control of the supply. Under either interpretation, water was again made available to those living near Muttur. Still, fighting over the gates continued Thursday, the GoSL military reportedly determined to regain physical control over the water supply. More than 50 civilians were killed, another 200 injured, and thousands more left struggling to fins shelter, food and medical attention.
At Grace Care Center, the birthday of one of the girls was celebrated, a rare night of silence in a noisy month. The children listened to music, took a sea bath, and by evening enjoyed outside prayers under a still, quiet moon. Brief, rare moments of hope in the lives of human beings who pray they don't become statistics.

(We wish to thank Jim "Grasshopper" Mitchell, VeAhavta's Press Officer, for this report. Since visiting the Grace Care Center for the first time in early 2005, Jim has been a relentless advocate for the residents and staff and has devoted hundreds of hours of his time writing stories that capture the heart of Grace. In addition to his "regular job" as a professional journalist for a community newspaper in Michigan and his volunteer job as the VeAhavta Press Officer, Jim is the author of the forthcoming (2007) "It Was All Right: Mitch Ryder's Life in Music," a career biography of the Detroit Wheels singer, the voice behind "Devil With a Blue Dress On.")

Jim posing for a photo in February 2006 with two Grace residents

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