Sri Lanka blasts: Two men recall horror of losing families in attack; UK citizen says family died 'mercifully with no pain'

COLOMBO: Two men, whose lives were snuffed out by the Easter Sunday attack, have recalled the moments leading to the attack.

A man whose Australian wife and only child died in a bomb blast in a Sri Lanka church said he walked out ahead of his family, moments before the explosion.



In an interview to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sudesh Kolonne said that he saw his 10-year-old daughter Alexendria dead on the floor of St. Sebastian Catholic Church. Her mother Manik Suriaaratchi was also killed.


"I don't know what to do," he said. "We used to go to that church every Sunday. We never expected this."

Kolonne said that the family had moved from the Australian city of Melbourne in 2014 to Sri Lanka, where his wife started a consultancy business. Their child was a student at an international school at Colombo.


Meanwhile, a British national confirmed the death of his wife and two children in the Sri Lanka attacks.

Ben Nicholson said that his wife Anita Nicholson and their 14-year-old son Alex and 11-year-old daughter Annabel were killed while in the restaurant of the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo.

"Mercifully, all three of them died instantly and with no pain or suffering," Nicholson was quoted as saying.

The family was on a vacation in the island nation.

He thanked the medical teams at General Hospital in Colombo for their help and asked for privacy so he could grieve with his extended family.

Seven suicide bombers believed to be members of an Islamist extremist group - the National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) - carried out a series of devastating blasts in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing 310 people and wounding 500 others, including Indians, in the country's worst terror attack.

A string of eight blasts were reported, including at three churches in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo's Kochchikade district during Easter services. The Shangri-La, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand luxury hotels, all in the capital, were also targeted.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but police have so far arrested 24 people - mostly members of the NIJ - in connection with the blasts.