I will never understand those who feel violence against others is a good way to elevate/support their beliefs - any belief. Is peacefully living with all our fellow humans that hard of a thing to do?
My heart and prayers are with those affected and those in the country who are stunned at what some of their countrymen (or whoever) have just done and trying to help via donating blood, etc.
We have relatives who have a beach house there and it just so happens that their entire extended family (3 children and lots of grandchildren) from all over the world (The grandparents live in London, the kids and grandkids live in Israel and the US) are all there for a big family reunion. Thank heavens they are all safe. Heart goes out to the families of the injured and killed.
@jym626 I’m glad they’re all safe. I imagine it must be rather scary to be in the country now - and of course - one never knows what sorts of copycats are out there.
@Creekland Fortunately their home is far from the city, but the son/DIL and kids that were about to return to the States have to postpone for a few days due to a curfew. She also said she thinks they may be temporarily blocking the Whatsapp which is how many communicate.
Yes, the government has blocked all social media and apps.
Well they (my relatives) were communicating by facebook. Maybe they are trying to stop the terrorist communications, but families of those in Sri Lanka want to be able to try to reach loved ones.
It is heartbreaking … so hard to understand.
This was the saddest news today and I was so disappointed (appalled, really) that it wasn’t mentioned in church this morning. Prayers go out to everyone affected.
@lilmom my H is a pastor and today in service he made sure to define community as the community that our creator made, meaning our whole world and then talked about the Sri Lanka bombings. What disappointed me was when the worship leader led the prayers she talked about “the unrest in the middle east” without mentioning anything about Sri Lanka. I am unsure if she thinks Sri Lanka is in the middle east or if she was referring to something that was not mentioned out loud.
Incredible that the Notre Dame thread got so much more traction.
^^^ Well, it was the Easter weekend and many (me) spent very little time on CC. I didn’t even know about Sri Lanka until Sunday noon just because I had no news exposure until then.
Probably because:
A. It is likely that more posters on this forum are not familiar with Sri Lanka compared to France.
B. The government there is limiting social media and other ways of getting news out. (Of course, in a news vacuum, speculation can spread, and inflammatory opinions can jump the gun.)
C. Since it appears to be politically related violence, the forum rules against “politics not related to college” may limit what posters are willing to write.
It seems to be related to an ongoing civil war (with probable religious undertones as well, given some of the targets and date of the attack). Regardless of whether anyone has heard of Sri Lanka, the killing of 300 or so of any innocent people should cause a louder response, IMO.
The civil war in Sri Lanka ended about 10 years ago, and was between the Tamil and Sinnhalese. The country is majority Buddhist, with only about 10% Muslim and about 6% Christian. I agree with the leaders there who think that this attack was pushed by some international faction, although it was carried out by locals.
When terrorism is involved, threads could easily go down the religious discussion rabbit hole. Some posters are likely not commenting because of that. Plus, unbelievable shock.
Heard about this yesterday morning when I woke up and turned on the news… So tragic and heartbreaking to target those at prayer in a house of worship on one of the most important holidays.
The sense I got was that even though the civil war “officially” ended several years ago, there is still unrest and I believe residual unhappiness with the Brits.
I’m not sure why it’s a surprise that there are less comments on here than on the Notre Dame thread. What can people say? It’s horrible, tragic, an evil act, and the new normal. We are getting used to massive Islamic terrorist attacks on groups of innocent people overseas. Does anyone even start a thread when they bomb mosques and marketplaces in Iraq and Afghanistan? It’s part of the fabric of our society now, evil that we can’t understand, but finds a way to flourish.
Sad that people have become so blase’ when they hear of mass killings 
And they found another bomb today that was set to go off on a delay, to kill even more. Hopefully there are no more still to be found.
The media/communications ban must be lifted as the relatives posted a photo of their seder on facebook today.
It is sad that we have become so used to this. So used to school shootings, church shootings, massacres, brutality, terrorism. I used to watch the news all the time, now I mostly turn it off. It just never stops.