Families of Sri Lanka’s ISIS Easter bombing victims to finally receive compensation

Sri Lanka Easter attack, photo by UCA.

Family members of victims of ISIS’s 2019 Easter bombing attack in Sri Lanka are finally set to receive financial compensation. The savage attack slaughtered at least 290 people and injured hundreds more.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court ruled yesterday that former President Maithripala Sirisena and four other senior government officials were responsible for failing to prevent the attack.

The court ordered a victims’ fund to be set up at the Office of Reparation to “investigate the alleged underpayment or nonpayment” of compensation.

According to the ruling, Sirisena was negligent because he failed to prevent the attack despite having credible intelligence warning of it. The court ordered him to pay US$273,300 from his personal funds to the victims’ families.

Meanwhile, the other four officials were ordered to pay a total of US$574,000.

The court also directed the government to “take appropriate disciplinary action” against former State Intelligence Service Chief Nilantha Jayawardena for his “lapses and failures,” CNN reported.

During the horrific 2019 Easter bomb attacks in Sri Lanka, several bombs struck churches and hotels on Easter Sunday. Shortly after the attacks, the Sri Lankan government admitted it had failed to act on multiple warnings from intelligence agencies, including from India and the United States. In the following days, Sri Lankan intelligence services said they believed the bombers had clear links to ISIS.

Christians are a religious minority in Sri Lanka, making up less than 10% of the population.

The bloodthirsty savages of ISIS have wreaked havoc on innocent people across the globe.

In August last year, an ISIS member who was part of a plot to take hostages in Syria was sentenced to life in prison. The ISIS member, 34 year old former British national El Shafee Elsheikh, kidnapped and brutalised more than two dozen Western hostages, according to prosecutors.

In October, United States Special Operations forces reportedly took down three senior ISIS figures in Syria.