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The Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka shattered the island nation's peace just days before it would have marked ten years since the end of a 26-year civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).Data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal shows that since 2010, no Sri Lankan civilian had been killed in a terrorist incident until Sunday -- when seven suicide bombers, originally reported to be members of the National Thowheed Jamath, perpetrated a series of blasts that ripped through three churches and luxury hotels, killing over 350 people and wounding more than 500 others. The Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attacks.
With this, they brought back the spectre of violence in a country that saw an estimated 100,000 people killed during the conflict with the LTTE, which was fought to the bitter end.
The political conflict between the island's majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils dates back to the early 1950s, but the civil war, which came to define the struggle between the two groups, is considered to have begun in July of 1983. In 1975, youth members of the Tamil United Front had founded the LTTE. The LTTE would go on to run a violent campaign for a separate Tamil homeland, a "Tamil Eelam", in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years, bringing with it terror tactics such as suicide bombings.
The war begins:
On July 23, 1983, the LTTE killed 13 Sinhalese soldiers, triggering the worst-ever racial riots in Sri Lanka. An estimated 2,000 people lost their lives and Tamils faced arbitrary arrests, with many being detained for long periods without a trial. This was the start of what the Tigers called the "First Eelam War".
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