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Tiny coffins laid to rest in mass grave

The coffins came one by one, some heavy and others much lighter.

As bulldozers cleared more space in a vacant lot near St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, barefoot men dripping with sweat scooped dirt with shovels in punishing heat.

One family stood in the shade. They were here for the burial of an 11-year-old boy.

“I don’t even know what to say,” said Lasanthi Anusha, a woman who came for the burial of her son’s classmate. “There were even smaller ones.”

Tuesday was the beginning of the first mass burials of the victims of Sunday’s suicide attacks in Sri Lanka, which killed more than 300 people, including many children. Soldiers and even an armored personnel carrier lined the roads as the burials took place amid widespread grief and intense security.

Of the half-dozen sites simultaneously attacked on Sunday, the church in Negombo was the hardest hit. As many as 100 people were killed in the suicide bombing there.