The Church Moments Before the Bombing

On April 21, 2019, Easter Sunday three churches and three luxury hotels were attacked by suicide bombers in Sri Lanka by Islamist fundamentalists. Two hundred fifty-three people were killed including 42 foreigners.

On Easter morning Sunday, April 21, 2019 suicide bombers attacked three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka. The churches were the Shrine of St Anthony a Catholic Church in Colombo, St Sebastian's Church in a suburb of Negombo and at Protestant Zion Church in Batticaloa. Within moments bombs went off at the Kingsbury Hotel, the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, and the Shangri La Hotel. Later in the day, a bomb went off at a housing complexion Dematagoda.

A total of 253 people were killed and over 500 wounded. Forty-two of them were foreign tourists and businessman. The bombers were said to be part of the local radical Muslim National Thowheeth Jama'ath with help from a foreign terrorist organization. The Islamic State or ISIS claimed the bombing were taking place at their direction. Sri Lanka announced a state of emergency in response to the attacks.