The Archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, has urged Sri Lanka’s fishing community to help fight the country’s drug trade and to refuse to let fishing boats be used to move narcotics.
He was speaking on Sunday at an event at St. Lazarus Church in Bandarawatta, Beruwala, Ada Derana reported.
The appeal
The Cardinal said it was unfortunate that a significant quantity of the drugs entering the country was being brought in by sea, using boats.
“I humbly request the fishing community not to facilitate the transportation of drugs into the country through their boats.”
He said drug addiction was having a devastating effect on the country’s young people, destroying their lives and causing serious hardship for their families.
Why the sea route matters
The appeal targets a channel that has featured in some of the country’s larger narcotics seizures. In April the Navy intercepted a multi-day fishing vessel carrying a suspected narcotics haul south of the island and arrested four people — the pattern the Cardinal described, in which registered fishing craft and their crews sit at the centre of enforcement.
Beruwala is a coastal fishing town on the south-western seaboard, so the remarks were delivered to a congregation drawn from the community the appeal concerns.
The Cardinal is a frequent commentator on public policy. He was briefed by ministers on judicial and prison reforms in August, and in July addressed technology, consumerism and family life at Seeduwa. Sunday’s remarks frame narcotics as a community responsibility alongside a policing one.
Not reported
Ada Derana does not say what the occasion at St. Lazarus Church was, whether fisheries officials or police attended, or whether the Cardinal proposed any specific measure beyond the appeal itself. He did not cite a figure or a source for the share of drugs arriving by sea, and no government or fisheries-sector response was reported. No other newsroom carried the remarks at the time of writing.
