By Jose Kavi
New Delhi: Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who arrived in India on September 28, says his rescue from 18 months of captivity in Yemen was the result of sincere and ardent prayers of people of all religions in India and abroad.
“God and the inner goodness of my captors are the reasons that I am alive now,” the 59-year-old Salesian priest told a press conference in New Delhi hours after his arrival from Rome.
He repeated the same during a thanksgiving Mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral in the evening attended by more than 5,000 people.
The bespectacled priest in a black clerical dress looked weak and sounded feeble as he narrated his abduction from a Mother Teresa center in Yemen’s Aden city on March 4, 2016, and his long stay with his captors. He was released on September 12 this year.
Father Freddy D’Souza, executive director of Caritas India who moderated the press conference at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, introduced Father Uzhunnalil and said the priest had not yet regained his health.
Father Uzhunnalil said his captors did not torture or ill treat him. “They gave me food. They gave me medicine too on one or two occasions when I was sick.”
He said he had no communication with the world outside and that he was confined to a room with some ventilation. “I had a small sponge like mattress I used to sit and sleep,” he said.
The priest who suffers from diabetes said the long confinement deteriorated his health. “I weighed 82 kilograms when I was abducted. Now I am 55 kilograms. My captors gave me medicine to control my sugar level when they saw me losing weight rapidly due to high sugar.”
He acknowledged that he had felt lonely and uncertainty, but no fear of death. “I never lost hope. Faith in God and prayers sustained me.” He said he was sure many people would be praying for him.
Father Uzhunnalil, who came to the 4:30pm press meet accompanied by the Salesian provincials of Bangalore and Delhi and Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara of Faridabad, struggled for words to thank a long list of people, including Pope Francis, the governments of India and Oman.
He said he spent his captivity praying for peace and harmony in the world and for his captors. He urged people to pray for those indulging in violence and war to achieve their goal. “We should pray so that wars end and everybody can live in peace and harmony.”
The priest, who hails from Ramapuram, a village in Kerala’s Kottayam district, said he was overwhelmed when he was told by his family members that people of all religions had prayed for his release in their own ways. “They told me that Hindus had offered puja in temples and Muslims prayed to Allah for my safety. Now I have become the property of not only my family, or my congregation. I now belong to the entire world.”
He offered his prayers and condolence to the Missionaries of Charity congregation that lost four of its members who had worked at the Aden center. The nuns were among 16 people the Islamic terrorists killed on the day of Uzhunnalil’s abduction.
Uzhunnalil turned emotional at the start of the Mass and later while delivering a message to the congregation in the cathedral. His speech was interspersed with long silence. He was seen wiping his tears.
He will leave for Bengaluru on September 29 morning where he will address the standing committee of the Catholic bishops.
Archbishop Bharanikulangara and Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro and scores of priests joined Uzhunnalil at the Mass.