 Up to 60,000 people, mostly Sinhalese, including many students died as a result of this insurgency led by the factions of the Marxist JVP.In July 1983, the darkest anti-minority pogrom in Sri Lankan history, known as the Black July riots, erupted.The riots began as a response to a deadly ambush by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), one of the many Tamil militant groups of that time, on Sri Lankan Army soldiers, which lead to deaths of 13 soldiers.