Qualla: Navaly Church Bombing https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:31 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Navaly Church Bombing https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing Navaly Church Bombing: Introduction https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing/ The military had distributed leaflets telling civilians to take shelter in places of worship. Hundreds of Tamil families in Navaly, on the Jaffna Peninsula, did exactly that. They gathered in the Church of St. Peter and Paul - men, women, children, elderly people - carrying what they could, trusting that a church would protect them from the fighting that was closing in around the peninsula. On the afternoon of July 9, 1995, a Sri Lankan military aircraft bombed the church. The initial count was 65 dead and more than 150 wounded. As days passed and the overwhelmed Jaffna Teaching Hospital lost patients it could not save, the death toll climbed. It reached at least 147. Among the dead were at least 37 children.

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]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/c/8/z/navaly-church-bombing-wp/tc8z-navaly-church-bombing-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Navaly Church Bombing: The War Closes In https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing/ The bombing occurred during one of the most intense phases of Sri Lanka's civil war. On April 19, 1995, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam broke the existing ceasefire by destroying two Sri Lanka Navy gunboats, the SLNS Sooraya and SLNS Ranasuru. The government responded with O...

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]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/c/8/z/navaly-church-bombing-wp/tc8z-navaly-church-bombing-the-war-closes-in.mp3 0:06 2 full Navaly Church Bombing: An Afternoon in July https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing/ Several hundred people were inside the Church of St. Peter and Paul and in the surrounding grounds when the bombs fell. The church stood well away from the front lines of fighting - a fact later emphasized by Daya Somasundaram, a senior professor of psychiatry at the University o...

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]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/c/8/z/navaly-church-bombing-wp/tc8z-navaly-church-bombing-an-afternoon-in-july.mp3 0:06 3 full Navaly Church Bombing: The Silence That Followed https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing/ The International Committee of the Red Cross broke the news - they were the only international aid agency operating in the Tamil areas at the time. ICRC teams helped evacuate the wounded to the hospital and documented what they found. Marco Altherr, the ICRC head in Sri Lanka, co...

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]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/c/8/z/navaly-church-bombing-wp/tc8z-navaly-church-bombing-the-silence-that-followed.mp3 0:06 4 full Navaly Church Bombing: What Remains https://qualla.com/navaly-church-bombing/ The church was rebuilt. A memorial now stands at the site, bearing the names of the dead. Every year, survivors and families gather to remember - though even commemoration has not come easily. During the 25th anniversary in 2020, uniformed Sri Lankan police pushed back Tamil mour...

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]]> Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/t/c/8/z/navaly-church-bombing-wp/tc8z-navaly-church-bombing-what-remains.mp3 0:06 5 full