Armed attack on a Christian Church in Sri Lanka, commemorating the bloody Easter incidents of 2019

A man was arrested after opening the fire, without hurting a church in the center of Sri Lanka, who was on a high alert on commemorating Islamist attacks who killed 279 people on Easter day in 2019, AFP and Agerpres reported.

The suspect concerned the Evangelical Church in Manampitiya, located about 250 kilometers northeast of the Capital Colombo, the police said, adding that a few windows were broken.

“The first elements of the investigation suggest that the suspect targeted the church due to a personal dispute with the pastor,” the source said.

This incident has occurred in the middle of the commemoration of six years since the attacks that targeted three churches and so many luxury hotels, which resulted in 279 dead, including 45 foreign citizens, and over 500 injured.

This series of suicide attacks was claimed by a local jihadist group that claims to be part of the Islamic State group.

The police and the army of Sri Lanka have intensified security at churches across the country from Friday, during the Easter holidays.

Six years after the attack, the Catholic Church on the island of the Indian Ocean has decided to make the victims of the most fatal attack in its “heroes of faith”.

Several investigations arranged as a result of this wave of attacks have identified links between their authors and units of the country's military services.

The Catholic Church claims that the attacks have contributed to the re -election of the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and accuses the successive governments of Sri Lanka of protecting the instigators of the attacks and their accomplices.