Sri Lanka’s civil war was fought largely along national and ethnic, not religious, lines.
Sri Lankan soldiers secure the area around St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo after a blast on April 21, 2019. By Emily Tamkin Emily Tamkin Reporter covering foreign affairs Email Bio Follow April 21 at 2:30 PM The explosions in Sri Lanka on Sunday, which killed more than 200 people and injured hundreds, were the deadliest violence in the country since its civil war ended a decade ago.
It was in this context that, in 1976, a man named Velupillai Prabhakaran formed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, dedicated to the fight for Tamil independence. In 1983, the LTTE ambushed an army convoy. Thirteen soldiers were killed. Riots in response left as many as 3,000 Tamils dead. This pogrom, known as Black July, marked the beginning of large-scale violence in Sri Lanka.
For the next few years, both sides violated the cease-fire. In May 2009, Sri Lanka announced that the army had taken control of the entire island nation and had killed Prabhakaran. The war was formally declared over.
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