Deep wounds in Lanka 5 years since Easter massacre

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka marks on Sunday five years since bombers slaughtered 279 people in the island’s deadliest suicide atack, but grieving families say they are still waiting for justice.

Government employee Saman Sirimanna, 59, and his wife Sriyani, 57, lost their two children when a suicide bomber stormed into St. Anthony’s church in the capital Colombo on Easter Day 2019.

It was part of a wave of atacks that included three luxury hotels and two other churches in the majority Buddhist nation.

Sirimanna said his 19-year-old son and 22-yearold daughter had gone to “seek blessings” for good exam results.

“My loss is irreplaceable,” Sirimanna told reporters, with tears in his eyes. “My children will never return.”

Among the dead were 45 foreigners, including tourists visiting the island a decade ater the end of a brutal civil war.

Sirimanna is biter over delays in court proceedings and a dragging investigation into the bombings.

A court last year ruled that Sri Lanka’s expresident and top officials had failed to heed urgent warnings that the atacks were imminent.

An inquiry into the bombings found the atacks were the work of a homegrown militant group that declared an affiliation with the Daesh group.

But survivors and bereaved families are demanding a proper investigation into claims of links between the bombers and Sri Lankan intelligence officials.

“I am the first person who filed legal action,” Sirimanna said. “I went to court because the authorities did not carry out their responsibilities.”

Evidence tendered during a civil case brought by Sirimanna and other relatives of the dead showed that Indian intelligence officials warned Colombo of the atack more than two weeks earlier.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that top officials, including then-president Maithripala Sirisena, had been negligent in failing to prevent the bombings. Sirisena was in Singapore on the day of the atacks.

It ordered the defendants to pay 310 million rupees ($1 million) in compensation to victims and relatives.

But the ruling has yet to be fully implemented as Sirisena has appealed the order.

“The court gave them six months to pay — they didn’t,” Sirimanna said, noting the next hearing in the case is scheduled for July.

“We hope at least then there will be some justice,” he added. Successive governments have failed to probe media claims that Suresh Sallay, a top military intelligence official linked to former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, had connections with the bombers.