On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated Islamic State (IS)-related terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, two smaller explosions occurred at a housing complex in Dematagoda and a guest house in Dehiwala. A total of 269 people were killed, with over 200 of them being Christians, including at least 45 foreign nationals, three police officers, and nine suicide bombers. An additional 500 were injured. The church bombings were carried out during Easter services in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo; the hotels bombed included the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury and Tropical Inn. According to the State Intelligence Service, a second wave of attacks was planned, but was prevented due to government raids.
According to Sri Lankan government officials, all nine suicide bombers involved in the attacks were Sri Lankan citizens associated with National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ), a local Islamist militant group founded by Zahran Hashim, and known for attacks against Buddhists and Sufis or the Jamathei Millathu Ibrahim (JMI), a smaller group of youth. On 23 April, State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene theorized that the attack was in retaliation for the Christchurch mosque shootings which occurred the month before on 15 March 2019. The direct linkage between the two attacks has been questioned by the government of New Zealand and by other experts. The NTJ had been stockpiling explosives since at least January 2019.
On 23 April 2019, the Amaq News Agency, a propaganda outlet for the Islamic State (IS), stated that "the perpetrators of the attack targeting the citizens of coalition countries and Christians in Sri Lanka were Islamic State fighters." Sri Lanka was not part of the anti-IS coalition, yet the overwhelming majority of those killed in the bombings were Sri Lankan citizens. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was previously believed to be either dead or retired, praised the attackers during an 18-minute video on a range of topics. The Criminal Investigation Department, however, stated that there was no evidence of IS's direct involvement.
Security lapses leading to the attack, and the Sri Lankan government's failure to act on intelligence were highlighted during inquiries into the attacks. On 12 January 2023, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka ruled that the then-incumbent president Maithripala Sirisena and several other government authorities at the time failed to act on intelligence, and were ordered to pay compensation to victims.
Background
The main religions in Sri Lanka are Buddhism (70.3%), Hinduism (12.6%), Islam (9.7%) and Christianity (6.1%), with 82% of the Christians being Roman Catholics. The remaining Christians are evenly split between the Anglican Church of Ceylon and other Protestant denominations.
During the 2010s, a low but persisting number of attacks and threats were made against Christian congregations and individuals, as well as other religious minorities, by local monks, although they may or may not be actual members of the Buddhist clergy.Ominous rise in attacks on Sri Lanka's Christians . Sri Lanka Campaign (17 May 2016). Retrieved 22 April 2019.Buddhists destroy a church in Sri Lanka. Christians continue to pray under a tree . Asia News (14 January 2017). Retrieved 22 April 2019. Anglican Bishop of Colombo, Dhiloraj Canagasabey called for constitutional rights on religion to be protected.Sri Lanka Christians protest against attacks . UCA News (27 January 2017). Retrieved 22 April 2019. In 2018, the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL) reported a large increase in the number of attacks against Christians in the country that year. This coincided with a Supreme Court ruling against a Catholic organisation in August, which deemed that proselytism was not protected by the constitution (though individual freedom of religion remained protected).Sri Lanka: Sharp increase in violence against Christians . World Watch Monitor (29 October 2018). Retrieved 22 April 2019.A Bill titled "Provincial of the Teaching Sisters of the Holy Cross of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Menzingen of Sri Lanka (Incorporation)" . Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Retrieved 22 April 2019.
Easter Sunday is Christianity's holiest day and church attendance in Sri Lanka is very high on this day. This was the first time since 2009, the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, that the country had experienced a major terrorist attack.
Islamic radicalisation The Sri Lankan government was aware of some foreigners arriving in Sri Lanka to spread what Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe called Islamic extremism. In November 2016 he told parliament that 32 Sri Lankan Muslims from "well-educated and elite" families had joined the IS. On 25 April 2019, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe revealed that the government had known of the Sri Lankan nationals who had joined Islamic State and returned to the country – but they couldn't be arrested, because joining a foreign terrorist organisation was not against the law.
In the aftermath of the bombings, investigations revealed that school textbooks for Islam published by the government also encouraged the radicalisation of Muslims. The school books since the 1980s called for the death sentence for those who leave Islam.
Prior to the attacks Vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka Hilmy Ahamed had said about three years ago he warned military intelligence officials about the National Thowheeth Jama'ath, saying "targeting the non-Muslim community is something they encourage – they say you have to kill them in the name of religion".
Indian intelligence agencies provided specific information to Sri Lankan authorities about the method and target locations for the potential terrorist attacks to Sri Lankan authorities as early as 4 April, and again on the night before, and as close as two hours, before the first attack. This included information about the threat to churches, gathered from interrogation of a suspected IS recruit in Indian custody. The first public disclosure regarding the call made by Indian intelligence agencies on the day of the attack was brought to light by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, then Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL), during a 2021 interview with Chamuditha Samarawickrama.
The New York Times and AFP reported on a police chief warning security officials in an advisory ten days before the attacks of a threat to prominent churches from a radical Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama'ath. No information in this regard had been passed to the senior politicians of the country; Minister Harin Fernando then tweeted images of an internal memo and report by the police intelligence of a terror attack planned by the founder of National Thowheeth Jama’ath, Mohammed Zahran (aka Zahran Hashim).
Investigators have said that Rilwan Hashim, brother of Zahran, had built the explosives alongside Mohammad Hasthoon. Zahran had claimed to have been appointed member of the Sri Lankan branch of Islamic State by one of its officials and to be receiving orders directly from Syria, a claim investigators believe to have been fabricated. Zahran held a meeting in early April 2019 with over a dozen people in Panadura, where they decided upon the attack. Some participants however wanted to target the Buddhist festivals including Vesak.
The cohorts of Hashim had stayed in contact through WhatsApp and Telegram. The planning for a future attack may have begun in mid-2018, though the group hadn't selected any target. Investigators believe that the Easter attack plan came into being much later, with roles of perpetrators being decided upon only shortly before Easter. They had communicated through Threema a few weeks before the attack.
In January 2019 a stockpile of suspicious explosives was discovered near the Wilpattu National Park which contained 100 kilos of high explosives and 100 detonators. The police confirmed that this was from a "newly formed radical Muslim group". On 16 April a parked motorcycle in Kattankudy carrying explosives detonated without casualties during a lightning storm.
Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Easter Sunday bombings report reveals that in January 2019, four months before the attack, Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, then Director General of the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL), prepared and submitted a Monthly Threat Forecast (MTF) to President Maithripala Sirisena. The report highlighted a significant national security threat following the discovery of detonators in Wilpattu. This MTF was a confidential document intended exclusively for the President's review.
Attacks
Christians were attending Easter Sunday services when the bombings took place, targeting churches and hotels around Sri Lanka. The sequence and coordination of the bombings were planned to cause maximum destruction, targeting Christians during worship services across the island nation, and targeting guests during breakfast in beachfront hotels in the capital. All six of the first set of explosions targeting the churches and hotels were carried out by suicide bombers.
The first blast took place in the Shrine of St. Anthony, a historic Catholic church in the capital, where 93 people were killed. The second blast took place in St. Sebastian's Church in the Christian-majority suburb of Negombo, to the north of Colombo and Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. 115 people were killed at St. Sebastian's Church. St. Sebastian's is also close to Sri Lanka's main airport, Bandaranaike International Airport, where security was heightened.
On the other side of the island in Batticaloa, a bomb blast 15 minutes later killed 30 people at the Protestant evangelical Zion Church.
The Church bombings resulted in the deaths of more than 200 Christians.
+Timeline of the bombingsTime (UTC+05:30)Locations8:25 amColombo: Shrine of St. Anthony Church8:45 amNegombo: St. Sebastian's Church9:05 amBatticaloa: Zion Church9:15 – 9:20 am2:00 pmDehiwala: Tropical Inn2:15 pmDematagoda: Housing complex
Churches The Catholic Shrine of St. Anthony in Kotahena, Colombo, was the first to be hit, followed by the Catholic Church of St. Sebastian in Negombo. Sri Lankan news media initially reported at least 93 people killed at St. Sebastian's. In October 2019, the BBC reported that a total of 115 people had died in the St. Sebastian's bombing, including 27 children.
The Zion Church in Batticaloa, a Protestant congregation, was also bombed. Local news reported at least 30 killed in Batticaloa, with 9 of these reported by a police official to be tourists. A hospital official in the region said that more than 300 people had been admitted following the explosion. The BBC reported that the suicide bomber had attempted to enter the church under the guise of filming it, but was denied access because of the ongoing service. Instead, he detonated his bomb in the churchyard, killing many children from the attached Sunday school who were taking a break.
Hotels Three 5-star hotels on the beachfront in central Colombo were attacked around the same time as the churches: the Shangri-La Hotel, the Cinnamon Grand Colombo and The Kingsbury.
The Shangri-La bombers struck at 08:57 hours (UTC+05:30) during breakfast in the Table One Restaurant on the hotel's third floor, which was reportedly full of foreign tourists who made up the bulk of the hotel's clientele.