Sri Lanka Bombings

On April 21, 2019, Easter Sunday three churches and four hotels were targeted in a series of terrorist suicide bombings. It has been reported that over 250 people have died due to the devastating tragedy. National Thowheed Jamaat and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim are the two Muslim groups responsible for the attack. Government officials have identified the nine suicide bombers involved in the Easter attack.

Over 50 people have been arrested since the attack on Sunday including the father of two of the alleged suicide bombers. The hotels that were bombed were the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury, and Tropical Inn. The first bomb detonated in the Shrine of St. Anthony, a Catholic church as over 50 people were killed. St. Sebastian’s church had the most casualties as more than 100 people died due to the incident.

The bombings first took place at approximately 8:45 a.m and did not end until 2:15 in the afternoon. The first sites to be bombed were the Shrine of St. Anthony church, Shangri-La Hotel, and Kingsbury hotel. The bombings continued three days later, as a motorbike exploded on April 24, 2019. Another explosion occurred in Moratuwa during the police raids.

Aftermath

Days after the bombings took place, the Defense Ministry issued a police curfew on the day of the attacks and a temporary social media ban. They also closed all schools for the following two days. On Monday, April 22, the Special Task force found a van belonging to the terrorists outside of St. Anthony’s Shrine. The task force also found more than 150 gelatnite, IS uniforms, a large stock of metal balls, a drone, a suspicious van, and a laptop.

Gareth Leather, who is the senior Asia economist at Capital Economics stated: “ The experience of other countries suggests tourists arrivals to Sri Lanka will fall sharply and could take many years to fully recover”. He also said, “ By November, if we have clear stability in the country and this problem(has) been put well behind us, then the disruption may not be significant”.