Muslim fucktard: His head was later found in a separate place.

More than 100 parishioners of St. Sebastian’s Catholic Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, were killed in a suicide bomb attack during Easter services.

Wall Street Journal - ‘Everyone Has Lost Someone’—Sri Lankan Church Bombing’s Wrenching Toll

Attack on St. Sebastian’s Church decimates Roman Catholic community in a village north of capital.

By Eric Bellman and Newley Purnell

Updated April 23, 2019 12:23 a.m. ET

NEGOMBO, Sri Lanka—A parishioner was leading a prayer of thanksgiving to wrap up Easter Sunday services when a tall, slim young man ran into St. Sebastian’s Church from a side door.

Moments later, the church in this predominantly Catholic community north of Colombo was covered with blood and debris, its roof a gaping hole.

“I saw the people fall to the ground,” said Father Shamira Rodrigo, an assistant parish priest who was sitting in front of the altar when the explosion ripped through the congregation. “They were bleeding. They were carrying the dead. They were running here and there.”

Father Edmond Tillekeratne, who was leading services elsewhere on Sunday, rushed to St. Sebastian’s as soon as he heard about the explosion and found chaos.

“I saw a man who had blood on his shirt and trousers and he said, ‘my wife and my child are gone.’ He was crying. He couldn’t talk,” said Father Tillekeratne, social communications director for the Archdiocese of Colombo. “It’s horrible. To see pieces of bodies piled on each other. Pieces of human flesh on the walls.”

He said security-camera footage from the church had shown the young man—presumed to be a suicide bomber—was wearing a backpack. His head was later found “in a separate place,” Father Tillekeratne said.

The coordinated attacks on Easter morning at churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka killed at least 310 people and wounded another 500, with at least at least 37 international tourists—including several Americans—among the dead. Sri Lankan officials have said they believe a little-known local Islamist militant group, National Thowheeth Jamath, was behind the attacks, several of which appeared to involve suicide bombers.

On Monday, investigators pored through the churches and hotels including the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo, which is popular with international travelers.

St. Sebastian’s appears to have endured some of the worst carnage, with more than 100 of its members killed.

Christians, most of them Roman Catholic, make up only about 7% of Sri Lanka’s population, which is predominantly Buddhist, with Hindus making up around 13% and Muslims roughly 10%. But the neighborhood around St. Sebastian’s has hundreds of Catholic families, statues of saints on street corners and the name “Jesus” emblazoned on the back of three-wheeled rickshaws. Locals say they often met at the church for baptisms, weddings and an annual event in which the statue of St. Sebastian—which the faithful say can cure disease—is paraded through the neighborhood. There was never any need for security, they say.

The church filled up quickly for services this Easter Sunday. There was an unusually high percentage of children and elderly worshipers, residents said, as many adults prefer to go to a Saturday night Mass that starts the Easter celebration. By the time the Sunday Mass began, many were outside, some under mango trees in the courtyard.

Indunil Jayanthi, 39, said she arrived 10 minutes early but could only find room at the back of the church. The sermon included a lesson about helping those in need, she said, with a longer-than-usual communion to accommodate the crowd and then the prayer of thanks designed to end the service.

Her sister, her husband and their five children had arrived earlier, and were sitting in the center of the church when the explosion happened. They all died.

“We have never had these kinds of problems,” she said, sitting in a plastic chair set out for mourners in her family’s simple home. On the contrary, “miracles happen here,” she said, referring to locals’ belief in the powers of the St. Sebastian statue.

Church members were largely kept away from the building on Monday as investigators wearing rubber gloves combed through the wreckage. Residents peeked through holes in the concrete wall surrounding the property and argued with guards at the gate as they sought more information.

One man was so distraught he could hardly walk; his family held him up as he screamed about his son. He said he was so proud of his 15-year-old, who was set for school exams this week and had been praying for success; now he was gone. The man said he had visited several hospitals but hadn’t been able to find his son’s body.

Inside the church, a blue plastic tarpaulin covered the hole where the roof once was. Light streamed in through broken stained-glass windows. Pews were akimbo. The walls were splattered with blood and marked by small round craters left by shrapnel.

The statue of St. Sebastian survived the strike. Someone had gathered leftover shoes, scarfs, rosaries and a pair of car keys in one corner, but no one had been able to come to claim them.

Locals, priests and nuns went from home to home, trying to comfort families.

Nirosha Perera sat on her porch as mourners poured in to pay respects to her brother. His body was laid upon a bed with a satin sheet thrown over it, as his dog sat quietly below.

So many of the bodies were so damaged that authorities asked that they not be put on display, she said. But she wanted people to see her brother. The body won’t keep as long, she said, but people need to say goodbye.

“Everyone in the village has lost someone,” she said, looking at St. Sebastian’s across the street. “The church is where we used to go when we felt sad. Now when we go it is stained with this awful memory.”

Funerals are set to start soon. There are scheduled to be more than 18 souls put to rest in the cemetery behind the church on Tuesday morning alone. The community plans to keep burying people for the next few days.

Appeared in the April 23, 2019, print edition as 'In One Blast, Over 100 Worshipers Died.'