COLOMBO - Sri Lanka’s Catholic church said on April 17 it had lost faith in government investigations into the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, claiming it would seek divine help for justice.

Islamist suicide bombers hit three churches and three hotels on April 21, 2019, carrying out the country’s worst attack since the end of a bitter decades-long civil war in 2009.

Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith told reporters in Colombo that the Roman Catholic church in the majority Buddhist nation no longer trusted the authorities to expose those behind the bombings.

Several local investigations have found that the authorities failed to act on warnings of an impending attack 17 days before the bombings, and the alleged involvement of local intelligence operatives has been raised in Sri Lankan courts.

“Up to now, those in power... have not done anything substantial to discover what was behind these attacks,” said Cardinal Ranjith.

“We are sad that this attitude has been taken by our political leaders, so we have lost our trust in the system,” he said.

“We are now going to appeal to the Lord for justice for our people.”

He said the fifth anniversary of the attacks will be marked by religious services at two of the bombed churches – one in the capital and the other just outside – and a peaceful march by the faithful.

The cardinal noted that the government failed to investigate allegations in a 2023 British television documentary that linked the Easter Sunday bombers to a top intelligence officer in the current administration.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged an independent investigation with international help to establish the “full circumstances” of the bombings.

The president at the time, Maithripala Sirisena, was ordered by the Supreme Court in January 2023 to pay 100 million rupees (then about S$373,000) as reparations for his failure to stop the attacks.

He has petitioned the court saying he did not have the money, and a hearing is due in July. AFP