Eastern Sri Lanka On The Edge After Easter Bombings

BATTICALOA, SRI LANKA - MAY 2: Thashan looks after his son, 6 year old Shathok Shan as he is treated by a nurse on May 2, 2019 in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Thashan lost his wife and daughter in the attack at Zion church. usually brought his 3 children to Sunday school at Zion church, but easter morning his wife Rebecca took them. He was in the market when the blast went off, and seeing the smoke rising he rushed to the church to find his wife and 3 children. He searched through the debris and dead bodies but didn't find his family. At the hospital, he found his two sons who told him that his wife and daughter had passed away. "At the morgue I found my daughter, who was so burnt, I could only recognize her earrings. My wife, they couldn't find her whole body." He remembers getting his daughter, 3 year old Aaliya, ready for Sunday school that morning "I dressed her, and together we looked through her baby photos as I combed her hair. She was my life." Both of his sons panic if he leaves their side. "I'm tired and frustrated. I'm dead. I'm already dead," Thashan says. Sri Lankan police released the names all nine suspects who detonated the bombs during the Easter suicide bombings on Thursday, many from the eastern town of Kattankudy, a densely populated Muslim region surrounded by majority Tamil-Hindu towns. More than 253 people were killed and hundreds injured on Easter Sunday, after coordinated attacks claimed by the Islamic State group on three churches and three luxury hotels in the Colombo area and eastern city of Batticaloa. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)