Negombo struggles with scale of its loss as victims of Easter attack are buried in mass graves

A father with his arms around the shoulders of his two daughters. Parents and children posing for a family portrait. Dozens of black-and-white photographs of individuals. On posters and leaflets plastered across Negombo, the faces of the dead were everywhere on Tuesday, as mass funerals were held for those killed in Sunday’s terrorist attack.

Outside St Sebastian’s church, where at least 100 people were killed, a makeshift chapel was built under a tent in the courtyard. Throughout the morning, more than 20 coffins were carried in, one-by-one, before a mass funeral service. “There are so many bodies that we can’t accommodate them all at once,” said Anthony Jayakody, Colombo’s auxiliary bishop.

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Cries filled the air as priests wearing white robes and black sashes carried each coffin past the mourners. An older man wept uncontrollably beside a casket carrying his wife; the families of other victims stood aghast and silent.

Mourners, many dressed in white, filled the streets of what had become a city of funerals, with smaller ceremonies held in houses throughout the area. Priests and nuns stood on corners and comforted the faithful, as hundreds of soldiers – including some manning machine guns on armoured vehicles – guarded the laneways criss-crossing the majority-Catholic area.

Amila Thushranga, a local teacher, said students from his schools were among the dead, and he had spent the past two days spending the day visiting the homes of their families. “Every second house is having a funeral today,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A mass burial of victims at a cemetery near St Sebastian’s church in Negombo Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

One service he visited on Monday was for a young boy who had been killed while attending church with his grandmother. The older woman had survived. “Now she’s become mad, talking and shouting and scolding those around her, saying: ‘bring my child back to me, you have hidden him in some dark place’,” said Thushranga.

So as not to overwhelm the city’s two cemeteries, an empty lot a few hundred metres from the church had been turned into a mass burial site, where nearly two dozen bodies had been laid by the end of the day. They were marked out by flower arrangements and numbered wooden crosses.

Those who came to pay their respects had to first pass through a cordon of police officers who searched their clothes and bags.

A father and his two children were among those buried in front of their families and dozens of clerics standing in the shallow grave. “They have died in one place and our hierarchy has decided to bury them in one place,” said Father Sanjeev Senananya.

The two children were among at least 45 who had died in the bombings, according to Unicef.

Alongside the grief in Negombo, there was still disbelief at the extreme violence that had suddenly struck a quiet community. “It was so terrible,” said Father Sagara Hettiarachchi, who arrived at the church just after the bomb had exploded.

“Bodies, injured people, lamenting, weeping, crying. As Sri Lankans we never thought that such a thing would happen.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A security official stands guard outside St Anthony’s shrine in Colombo. Photograph: Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images

From his phone, he read out the announcement by a minister that the attack may have been an act of retaliation for the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch in March. “How come?” he asked. “This happened in New Zealand. And they come here to take revenge. How cruel is that?”

The streets of Negombo and the capital, Colombo, were nearly empty after police declared a state of emergency the previous evening and called for Tuesday to be a national day of mourning. Flags were lowered to half-mast on government buildings, and liquor shops were ordered to close for the day.

Three minutes of silence were held nationwide from 8:30am local time, marking the moment when the first of seven suspected suicide bombers had detonated their explosives. The front page of Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror was all black, except for the words: “In remembrance of all those who lost their lives.”

Play Video 1:51 Moment of silence and memorial services held for Sri Lanka church blast victims – video

Security around hotels and government buildings was upgraded by the afternoon following warnings from police officials that a van or lorry carrying explosives was in the city. Bomb disposal units were called to at least one railway station after reports of a suspicious package. A curfew was imposed again on Tuesday evening, and access to social media platforms, including Facebook, remained blocked.

Questions continued to be raised about whether Sri Lanka’s deeply divided government allowed its factional disputes to take precedence over the country’s security.

The country’s prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, admitted the danger was not yet over. “There are a few people on the run,” he told a press conference in Colombo, though he could not say how many. “We’re making progress, that’s all I can tell you.”

He admitted the bombings and the ongoing threat was likely to dent the country’s tourism industry, which had been hoping for a bumper year after being named Lonely Planet’s number one travel destination 10 years after the end of Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war against Tamil separatists.

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“At the moment many [tourists] are leaving and that’s understandable but we will give the signal when we have the situation fully under control,” he said.

In Colombo, few would be drawn on their thoughts about how the security services had performed, in a country where the police and army have been accused of abusing their powers. Ordinary people remained reluctant to openly criticise them.

“We don’t want to talk about politics,” said Sunanda Perera, outside St Anthony’s shrine, thought to be the first church targeted on Sunday. “We are sick of it. The politicians don’t look after us. These sorts of things should never happen again to the Sri Lankan people.”

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report