Horrific story for this Easter holiday in Sri Lanka, where a series of explosions from bombs were set off in churches and hotels across the country on this Easter Sunday. It prompted the nation to go on lockdown. Social media was shut down, and a curfew was imposed.
Quite clearly, this was an orchestrated terrorist attack in that country.
Overall, the death toll stands already at over 200, and it seems to be consistently rising.
It appears that authorities should have known about it, as they were tipped off by a memo warning of these attacks on April 11th:
"Serious action need to be taken as to why this warning was ignored," Sri Lanka's Minister of Telecommunications, Harin Fernando, tweeted along with a photo of the memo. The document, titled "Information of an alleged plan attack," is dated April 11 and signed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Priyalal Dissanayake.
Still, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared that he had not been kept abreast of the warnings of these attacks.
Manisha Gunasekera, the high commissioner of Sri Lanka in Great Britain, said:
"This is an attack against the whole of Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka is (a) multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country, and the whole country comes together in celebration of Easter Sunday."
Eight different sites across Sri Lanka were targeted. These include four sites in the nation's capital city of Colombo: St. Anthony's Shrine, Cinnamon Grand, the Shangri-La Hotel, and The Kingsbury Hotel. Additionally, St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, Zion Church in Batticaloa, Near Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia, and a house in Mahawila Gardens, Dematagoda were also attacked.
Bombs tear through Sri Lankan churches and hotels, killing more than 200 people By Sugam Pokharel, Euan McKirdy and Tara John, CNN, Sun April 21, 2019:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/21/asia/sri-lanka-explosions/index.html
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