The Indian Christian community in the Tri-state area organized a vigil in front of the United Nations to pray for peace and justice in Manipur where ethnic clashes have raged since May 3.
The participants of the August 5 program prayed for good sense to come to the perpetrators of the violence and for the authorities to have the courage to reign in the continuing attacks on the Kuki-Zo tribal people, mostly Christians, in the northeastern Indian state.
The vigil, attended by more than 700 people, expressed solidarity with the grieving people of Manipur. “Prayers by the clergy reflected the deep pain felt across the Indian Christian Community in the United States for the great calamity that befell Manipur with tremendous loss of human lives and destruction of homes and churches,” says a press statement from the Federation of Indian American Christians of North America (FIACONA), one of the organizers.
“This is not a protest rally. We aim not to examine why the riots happened, who is responsible, or politics. We are here today to pray for the rule of law in Manipur, and obviously, there are limits as to what we can do to help. However, Prayer does not have any limitations,” said FIACONA president Koshy George.