Easter in Sri Lanka
Death count is high, 8 bombs went off, and a 9th detonated when EDO tried to distmantle a car bomb.
Here is what we know
- At 08:45 Sunday morning, bombs tore apart three churches, one in the capital of Colombo, and two others in the cities of Negombo and Batticaloa.
- Four hotels in Colombo were also attacked: the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand, the Tropical Inn and the Kingsbury. There was another explosion at a housing complex in Dematagoda.
- Those targeted were members of Sri Lanka’s Christian population and guests at the island nation’s luxury hotels.
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “several U.S. citizens” were among those killed.
- The government of Sri Lanka has temporarily blocked social media services like Facebook and WhatsApp to prevent the spread of misinformation.
- Sri Lanka’s police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said 24 suspects have been apprehended and the attacks appear to have been carried out by suicide bombers.
- Sri Lanka experienced a vicious 26-year long civil war between its Sinhala Buddhist majority and minority Tamil Tiger ethnic group that ended in 2009.
- Many international citizens are dead. Several from Denmark, one from Japan and many others.
- Total bodycount is almost 300 dead, and more than 450 injured.
Here is what you should prepare
Many people struggled to let their friends and family know they were ok after the terror attacks. Phone lines, and social media are ofthen the first to be blocked. What can you do about it – if it happened to you ?
Make sure you have a VPN, which can allow you to send messages to friends and family anyway – should you be caught in a social media block.
Here is what we prepare
Luckilly – or perhaps unfortunately for several people – Ansnei did not have any clients in Sri Lanka during the attack. If we had, we would have warned them about a high security risk, and tried to convince to deroute for the time being. How come – you may ask ?
Well, the threat of terror attack was HIGH, and the police was also alerted.
The attacks were planned, and we advice our clients to live by the saying – better safe than sorry !
Ansnei – Keeping You Safe!
