Opinion: Sri Lanka’s Easter attacks among the worst modern acts of global terror

April 23, 2019 (LBO) - Sri Lanka has been a nation that has endured many a crisis. Death toll's in Sri Lanka's civil war, or devastating Tsunami have conditioned its people and institutions to heavy losses of life. With some estimates from wikipedia saying that the Tsunami took 30,000 lives and the civil war 100,000, Sri Lankans have become used to death. The fact that the country is used to death is a factor that may cause institutions to underestimate what the country has gone through during this Easter Sunday's carnage at churches and five-star hotels. With over 300 now confirmed dead, and over 500 still injured, Sri Lankans and their institutions should understand that this incident of terror is one of the worst globally in the modern era. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/sri-lanka-terrorist-attacks-among-worst-world-911 In the United States, a country that has probably spent over a trillion dollars in its global war on terror, only the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001 surpass the Sri Lankan death toll. The Sri Lanka attacks surpass the Oklahoma city bombing, attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and even the Pan Am bombing over Scotland. The death toll in the Sri Lanka attack is larger than any that could be confirmed by us in India, Europe or Asia. Only in the Middle East and Africa, there are a handful of events which surpass the death toll of those Sri Lanka just experienced. The bottom line is that this is one of the largest and most disturbingly coordinated terrorist attacks in modern history. Just because Sri Lanka has suffered so much in other tragedies, we must not fail to recognise the level of the tragedy that we have just experienced. The world seems to recognise this, as evidenced by the outpouring of condolences and messages of support from all over the world. Sri Lanka has now joined the likes of New York, Washington DC, London, Paris, Madrid, Mumbai, New Zealand, and many other great cities/countries where terrorists have sparked fear in order to cause chaos in a free society. Like the prior mentioned great cities and countries, Sri Lanka must mourn and then move forward. We must not give in to hatred or bigotry. We must keep progressing in our development as a free society.