[Shock waves from the devastating bombings a week ago could still be felt in Sri Lanka on Sunday, amid emotional vigils and “house-to-house searches” for people linked to the six attacks on churches and hotels. In a reminder of the continuing threat, the archbishop of Colombo, the capital, suspended Sunday church services for security reasons. Instead, he offered a televised Mass from his home.]
By
Mujib Mashal and Hannah Beech
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Priests outside St.
Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Saturday. The archbishop
of Colombo, who called
off Mass at the country’s churches for security reasons,
conducted a televised
Sunday service from his home. Credit Adam Dean
for The New York Times
|
COLOMBO,
Sri Lanka — The Shrine of
St. Anthony, one of the most famous landmarks in Colombo, is revered as a place
of miracles, and not just for Catholics.
Thousands of Sri Lankans every day — among
them Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims from far corners of the diverse nation —
find their way to the shrine in a corner of the church, seeking relief from
disease, financial troubles or even relationship stress.
But for Sagaya Devi Edison — who stood
outside the closed shrine on Sunday morning waiting for a prayer session and
vigil, hands clasped and tears running down her cheeks — the miracle was
personal.
Ms. Edison and her 23-year-old daughter
survived the Easter Sunday attack at the church because, while they were seated
all the way in the front, the bomber entered through the rear and detonated his
explosives there. The shrine, she reasoned, must have been looking after them.
“Everything I have is because of St.
Anthony,” she said.
Now, they said, they were praying for the
souls of the more than 250 people who did not make it through the attacks that
day.
Shock waves from the devastating bombings a
week ago could still be felt in Sri Lanka on Sunday, amid emotional vigils and
“house-to-house searches” for people linked to the six attacks on churches and
hotels. In a reminder of the continuing threat, the archbishop of Colombo, the
capital, suspended Sunday church services for security reasons. Instead, he
offered a televised Mass from his home.
The Islamic State, in a statement over the
weekend, claimed responsibility for three additional suicide bombings, which
occurred Friday during a raid by security forces on a hide-out of National
Thowheeth Jama’ath, its local affiliate believed to have carried out the
attacks.
The police and relatives identified three of
the 15 people killed in the house as the father and two brothers of the
ringleader, Zaharan Hashim. The only two survivors at the house were identified
as his wife and 4-year-old son. The Sri Lankan military has denied Islamic
State claims of inflicting casualties to its forces.
The statement was accompanied by a picture of
Mr. Zaharan posing with a younger brother, Rilwan. Both were named in an
internal security report this month that warned of potential attacks. Members
of Mr. Zaharan’s immediate family have followed his radical ideology for years.
In an unverified video circulating online,
Mr. Rilwan and another of Mr. Zaharan’s brothers — not a brother-in-law, as
previously reported — are seen discussing martyrdom and jihadism. Their
finger-wagging threats are repeatedly interrupted by crying children, both in
the background and on the lap of one of the brothers.
“Even if we are annihilated or killed, this
won’t stop,” Mr. Rilwan said in the video, the wall of the room matching that
of the safe house that was raided. “Even if our wives die, we will meet them in
heaven.”
At St. Anthony’s Shrine on Sunday, workers
were still busy cleaning up after sailors hosed down the floors. Plaster was
being removed, and peeling, heat-scorched paint scraped away. Outside, dozens
of worshipers, like Ms. Edison, still showed up.
They gathered on the street outside, singing
hymns and lighting candles behind several layers of barricades. Police officers
and soldiers dotted the area, with commandos keeping watch from the tallest
buildings. Some non-Catholic neighbors joined in a gesture of solidarity, while
others watched the procession of grief from their balconies.
As the bell started tolling just before 9
a.m., the same time the suicide bomber had detonated his explosives, the
worshipers wept openly.
“I can’t sleep,” Ms. Edison said. “There are
children now without fathers, without mothers,” she said, choking on her words.
Ms. Edison said she had turned to the church
ever since her first child was kidnapped and killed when she was 3. She prayed
for more children, and then for their safety and success.
“My son is in Canada,” she said. “I prayed
for him at the church. He wanted to go abroad. And after that he was able to go
abroad.”
In local legend, even the church’s origin is
associated with miracles. During the Dutch colonial period, when the government
persecuted Catholics, a traveling pastor was permitted to erect a church after
he was seen planting a cross and successfully praying for a village threatened
by rising waters.
Among the many miracles attributed to St.
Anthony, the local community fondly remembers an unscheduled stop by Pope John
Paul II in 1995.
People lined both sides of the highway as the
popemobile moved toward the state reception. When the convoy arrived at the
shrine, the pope tapped the window and asked to be let out, to the surprise of
his own guards and local security officers.
He had to use the restroom. But his stop at
the church, where he spent time with a small group of worshipers who had given
up on catching a glimpse of him on the highway, is etched in local memory as
nothing less than a miracle.
“People of all religious faiths come here,”
said Jancy Rani, 58. “No matter what they ask for, it comes true.”
Ms. Rani said two of her sisters had survived
the Easter Sunday bombing while at Mass.
“Their ears became upset,” she said. “They
were 10 benches in front of where the explosion happened.”
On Sunday morning outside St. Anthony’s, the
mood was grim. The hymns during the hourlong vigil, which ended with a candle
lighting, were frequently interrupted by sobbing. Some covered their faces with
their palms, others daubed tears with the edge of their saris.
If they were angry at the politicians, who
were having a more exclusive vigil in front of them in a cordoned-off area
close to the church, they didn’t show it. But everyone knows the government,
stuck in internal bickering, failed to act on repeated intelligence warnings.
“As Catholics, we are taught forgiveness,”
said John Anthony, a 58-year-old apparel exporter who starts his day at the
church before going about his work. “The past is the past.”
But as if looking for some sort of
consolation, the talk among the worshipers on the street was of the latest
miracle. A small statue of St. Anthony, believed to be over 150 years old and
standing not very far from where the bomber struck, survived without even a
crack.
“Nothing happened to the statue,” Mr. Anthony
said with awe.
Father Chamara, a priest at the shrine, said
the statue had been moved to the archbishop’s house on Sunday morning for the
televised Mass. Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister also attended.
He said the only marks on the statue were
some bloodstains on the cloak. “The bloodstains, we have kept them,” he said.
Aanya Wipulasena contributed reporting.
