Canadian residents in Sri Lanka are shocked at a series of Easter Sunday bomb attacks that have killed more than 200 people.
At least 290 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded in eight bomb blasts that rocked churches and luxury hotels in or near Sri Lanka's capital of Colombo on Easter Sunday -- the deadliest violence the South Asian island country has seen since a bloody civil war ended a decade ago.“There’s a massive feeling of shock and disbelief, especially as the day’s gone on and the magnitude of the attacks has been understood, ”she told CTV News Channel.
The three bombed hotels and one of the churches, St. Anthony's Shrine, are frequented by foreign tourists, and Sri Lanka's foreign secretary said the bodies of at least 27 foreigners were recovered. Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardena described the bombings as a terrorist attack by religious extremists and said 13 suspects had been arrested, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility.Riyaz Rauf, vice-president of the Canada Sri Lankan Association of Toronto, said he found out about the bombings via text messages just after midnight.Rauf, who moved to Canada nine years ago, said he's at a loss to explain the reasons behind the violence.
Canadian permanent resident Kanch De Silva arrived in Sri Lanka from Toronto two days ago to visit his parents, who live about 15 kms from Colombo. “I started hearing stuff about 8:45 in the morning and then the news started coming through. We all heard about six blasts and in the evening there was two more.”Amarnath Amarasingam, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo who has authored several books and papers on Sri Lanka, said even in a country "brimming" with ethnic and religious conflict, no one expected an attack of this scale.
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