Grief mingles with fear for a Christian minority that had enjoyed peaceful coexistence for years.
Relatives lay flowers after the burial of three members of the same family who died Sunday in Negombo, Sri Lanka, amid a series of bombings. By Pamela Constable Pamela Constable Foreign correspondent covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Asia, Latin America and immigration Email Bio Follow April 22 at 3:57 PM NEGOMBO, Sri Lanka — The long, narrow village road leading to St. Sebastian’s Roman Catholic Church became a gantlet of grief Monday.
Every family in Negombo seemed to have lost someone in the Easter Sunday bombings at churches and hotels that left more than 290 dead in several scattered locations. Everyone seemed to have a relative either dead or fighting for life in a hospital ward. St. Sebastian’s Church, the community anchor named for a saint of healing, was among the hardest-hit targets, with almost 150 worshipers killed at its Easter morning service.
The Silva family mourns the death of 13-year-old Anos Silva and his grandparents, who were killed on Sunday. Everyone seemed to be wondering the same thing: After almost a decade of peace and rebuilding since the 2009 settlement of a protracted and vicious civil war between ethnic Tamil guerrillas and the Sri Lankan armed forces, was terrorism again going to become part of their daily lives?
“People are terribly scared,” said Russell Eardle, 42, a British Sri Lankan man among the mourners. “They are peaceful, and they don’t know who is to blame. But if another religion has done this, it could be the beginning of another war, which nobody wants.” The Tamil Tigers — the separatist group that waged war against the Sri Lankan state for decades beginning in the 1980s — included some Christians, but Christians, by and large, were not targeted during the civil war.
Christian community leaders said church officials had announced that no religious services should be held in the immediate future and that Christians should keep a low profile. With a nighttime curfew also in effect in the metropolitan area, people gathered in silence and sorrow, reflecting on their common losses.
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