The worst outbreak of violence in Sri Lanka in ten years

Sri Lanka suffered during the several decades of a bloody civil war with many acts of terrorism.

a separatist group, the LTTE, Tamil tigers, which demanded autonomy for the tamil minority in the north.

Regeringssidan was accused of abuse, but even the LTTE was documented cruel. Among other things, tvångsvärvades child soldiers, and a special cadre of suicide bombers, the ”Black tigers”. The LTTE terrorstämplades of the EUROPEAN union and the united states.

the War's final ten years ago, in the spring of 2009, was a brutal slutoffensiv of the forces of the state which claimed thousands of lives, including civilians. When the Tamil tigers crushed, its leaders and Resulted Prabhakaran had been killed and the war was over was the emotions, therefore, mixed.

a Total 70.000 life required during 26 years of civil war

But the then president Rajapaksa became popular with large parts of the war-weary sri lankan people. He strengthened for the hand of their grip over power. It is punished in the end. In the presidential election of 2015 lost Rajapaksa.

His successor, Maithripala Sirisena, has shown authoritarian tendencies in a different way: He said, I like to copy the controversial philippine leader Rodrigo Dutertes bloody methods to get to grips with the knarkbrottslighet.

Under Sirisena, the country has also decided to re-start the execution of prisoners on death row after having abstained from it for 43 years.

Read more: the Sri Lankan government advertises for executioners

Read more: Sri Lanka's leaders want to copy the Dutertes policy

of the civil war. Many tour operators have stopped flying to the island, even if the fighting is not primarily took place where the beach resorts are located. The tsunami of christmas 2004, which required is 36,000 deaths on the island, took the final "killing" of many travel companies.

After the war began, however tourism is slowly growing again.

There have been some attacks and unrest even after 2009, for example, between the buddhist and muslim communities in the district of Kandy, a year ago, something that briefly led to a state of emergency. But nothing has been in the vicinity of the scale of Sunday's attacks.

Tourism has become the country's third largest source of income. The question is whether Sunday's attacks once again to scare away visitors.

, and the country has through the centuries been invaded by people from India and further afield.

2,000 years ago was built in the heyday of up around the magnificent irrigated rice paddies.

for many hundreds of years was marked the island by the competition between the two communities, the hindu-dominated the tamils, which is also found on the indian subcontinent, and the buddhist singhalese. The latter is believed to have come from northern India 2,500 years ago. But, at times, was the kingdom united.

eventually, the europeans fighting for influence. First it was the Portuguese and the Dutch. In the 1790s, conquered the the british island, then called Ceylon.

the Country became independent in 1948. First seen as a democratic model, but it became increasingly obvious that the majority singhalese were promoted at the tamilernas expense.

Among the tamils grew the requirement to break away and form a state of their own. 1976 was formed the LTTE. Seven years later, it erupted in full civil war.