COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, March 20, 2009: The Sri Lankan government told the nation’s Parliament on Thursday that it had decided to declare Kachchativu Island (midway between Sri Lanka and India in the Palk Strait) as a sacred area in view of the fact that it was a centre for the worship of St Anthony, the patron saint of fishermen on either side of the Palk Strait.
The only structure in the small rocky island is a minuscule chapel of St Anthony, which attracts fishermen from Ramanathapuram in India and Mannar in Sri Lanka. Kachchativu was ceded to Sri Lanka in the mid 1970s by slightly altering the maritime boundary.