Sri Lanka recovering after religious violence

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The hill city of Sri Lanka – Kandy is known to be a peaceful haven. But things changed early March. A brawl between young Muslims and a Sinhalese man eventually led to the death of the latter.

A few days later, far from the village where the incident took place, anti-Muslim riots erupted.

The Sri Lankan government imposed a state of emergency on March 6, but that did not stop the violence. Digana near Kandy saw at least 500 people vandalizing Muslim shops, mosques, properties, and cars. What seemed like a coordinated attack, considering the attackers left the Sinhalese Buddhist shops untouched, took the authorities by surprise.

A house charred in riots near Kandy, Sri Lanka /CGTN Photo‍

Abdul Bazith lost his life inside his father’s shoe shop.

An aspiring video journalist, Abdul was inside the shop but could not escape as the fumes of rubber suffocated him to death. His elder brother who tried to rescue him suffered major burn injuries. The attacks were carried out by Sinhalese Buddhist. Eyewitness accounts and pictures show that monks were also involved.

But for hundreds of years, Sri Lanka has seen communities living peacefully. There were also many religious leaders that stopped the situation from getting any worse.

Nelligala International Buddhist center is the second biggest of its kind in Kandy. The area has at least 5,000 Muslims and 14 mosques.

Dhammaratana Thera, founder of the Nelligala International Buddhist Center, along with his student monks decided to patrol the village to protect Muslims. He went to mosques and waited for people to finish their prayers after he got information of possible attack in the area that falls under this Buddhist temple.

Inside of a damaged church in Digana near Kandy, Sri Lanka /CGTN Photo

"We are identifying and correcting problems so that this kind of violence does not take place again. I do not charge the Sinhalese Buddhists directly. Some Muslim extremist groups and certain politicians are responsible for this. I repeat, because of few elements, the innocents have had to suffer," said Thera.

The religious leaders were asked to step in by Sri Lanka’s President Maithripale Sirisena when even after the emergency imposed, the violence continued. In the same village where Nelligala International Buddhist Center stand, ALM Zarook runs a tea factory. He employs 200 Sinhalese Buddhists.

"All Muslim villages in this area are small and scattered, surrounded by majority Buddhist community and temples, so each one lives in co-existence, and they live in harmony with people and especially within our area the Buddhist priest took action immediately… Still, we are unable to know by whom it was motivated or what was the reason behind it, Thera added.

Chief minister of central province of Sri Lanka inspects the damage. /CGTN Photo

“We will re-build up the mosque and give compensation, but that's not sufficient. We have to start something to increase the harmony in these communities," the chief minister of Sri Lanka’s central province Sarath Ekanayake told CGTN in an exclusive interview.

The administration has arrested more than 200 people after the violence that damaged at least 450 properties including cars and shops. But fault lines have been drawn, and the government is aware of it.

It’s clear that the crisis has caused wounds that will take some time to heal as the situation remains volatile.