Like a bad dream that does not end

In the pavilion behind the bombed-out Church of St. Sebastian they have erected a large black wooden cross, with a white mourning cloth hung, right next to a soldier wakes up, he carries a rapid-fire gun and the amount of praying circles. In the courtyard of the Church of the victims of terrorism from Sunday to bury waiting for Grieving. Priests in white robes stand at the ready to bless the coffins, which are now to be carried through the gate into the churchyard. But the coffins do not come.

A priest in a mourning song. "God take care of your body in grace, we pray for you", the voices unite in singing a melancholic singing. You want to be. in Would say goodbye to the Victims, but even that is made on this day in Negombo, 38 kilometres North of the capital, Colombo, is very difficult Because the coffins still don't come.

The government is at loggerheads

Finally, a Priest takes the microphone and explains that the dead could take their way to the Church, the funeral is postponed to the evening. Then he asks all to leave this place in large groups, but individually if at all possible. And creeping up again, the fear back in the heads, nervous glances to each other, some pushing quickly to the gate, you want to quickly get away.

day two after the terrorist attacks on Sri Lanka. The state has now declared a state of emergency, in the Morning, two more explosives to be discovered rates in the capital and defused in the afternoon, investigators explain that you are looking for two trucks, which are allegedly full of explosives to Colombo. All of this increases nervousness and despair. Many have the feeling that you are at the mercy of the extremist perpetrators of violence are unprotected and the government does not have the tricky situation is well in hand.

especially here, no one can understand why so many coordinated attacks were able to happen, although at least ten days earlier warnings of such attacks in the security circulated circles. Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe said that he had not been informed of the hazards, and President Maithripala Sirisena left so far open as to whether he knew of the intelligence information. The two men were once allies, have fallen out some time ago, in October, the power struggle between the rival plunged the country into a state of crisis. Many believe that the grave of the politician fights may have distracted so much that the extremists are the ideal conditions found, your destruction, to prepare work unhindered.

in Addition, the massive scale of the terrorist attacks, many nourishes the suspicion that the perpetrators have paid for high-ranking allies in the security apparatus. How should it be otherwise possible, a major terror plan undetected? The distrust is growing.

Increasing radicalisation of

In the courtyard of St. Sebastian Danthika Ramani De Silva is 67 years old. The little woman cleaned every week in the Church, as the worship service began on Sunday, she was out to get candles. Then the bomber detonated inside the suicide explosives. De Silva flinched under the pop, turned in shock to the Church and rushed Inside. But what you saw made you freeze instantly. She heard a voice that pleaded to water, but you couldn't move at all. Finally, De Silva ran sometime in a panic, to the outside, just away from this place. "It still feels like a bad dream," she says. De Silva is hoping that will eventually go away, but you know that all of this is true, you can look in all the grieving faces. Now she even cries. She looks up at the large cross on the soldiers with the machine gun and says: "this can't go on."

Islam in Sri Lanka is considered to be moderate and tolerant, however, the Association became tents radical voices louder in the past few years. New mosques were built, it is money from the Gulf States came into the country. Especially in the West of the island, where the Muslims belong mostly to the middle class or the Elite, have increased the radical slogans.

32 Sri Lankan Muslims from families of the educated Elite to be the direction of the Syrian-Iraqi civil war territory, to the IS to connect, had Sri Lanka's Minister of justice in 2016, said in front of the Parliament. Out of a total population of only 1.5 million Muslims this is in comparison to the neighboring countries.

family wiped out

to hear An alley to the North of Colombo, people everywhere crowd, distant musicians. Military drum rolls with a melancholic trumpet. Some meters further is the house of the family Pradap. On the main road has already seen a large poster with a young Couple and their two children, two and seven years rays age. On Easter Sunday the family went to mass in the Church of St. Anthony’s, and no more came out alive. In the semi-darkness four coffins laid out: father, mother, son and daughter, the neighbors pass to the dead in a silent procession, in the front, the big mother is, she begs and cries.

the brother of The slain father, had visited a different Church, his eyes flitting to the left and to the right. "In our district all have lived together in peace, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists." Now he wants to carry the coffin of his brother to the cemetery. But it takes hours until police officers give way, you do not have to secure on this day a half-dozen cemeteries, so that the extremists kindle is also still on the way to the last resting place of the bombs.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 23.04.2019, 20:40 PM