\n The Indian Ocean nation of Sri Lanka, which holds presidential elections on Saturday, emerged a decade ago from a devastating civil war to be rocked again this year by a series of Easter suicide bombings.\n<\/p>\n
\n Here are some key facts:\n<\/p>\n
\n - Mostly Buddhist -\n<\/p>\n
\n The teardrop-shaped tropical island off the southern tip of India is separated from the subcontinent by a shallow strip of sea known as the Palk Strait that is about 20 kilometres (12 miles) wide at the narrowest point. The island has a population of 21.6 million, according to the World Bank in 2018.\n<\/p>\n
\n Seventy percent are Buddhist, most of them ethnic Sinhalese; around 12 percent are Hindus -- mostly Tamils, who mainly live in the north and northeast of the island.\n<\/p>\n
\n Muslims make up 10 percent of the population and Christians about seven percent.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Once Ceylon -\n<\/p>\n
\n A strategic point on early maritime trade routes, the island was controlled by Portugal (1505-1656) and The Netherlands (1656-1796) before becoming a British colony called Ceylon in 1815.\n<\/p>\n
\n The last Sinhalese king reigned from 1798 to 1815.\n<\/p>\n
\n After more than 130 years of British rule, the island gained independence in 1948.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1972 it became a republic and adopted the name Sri Lanka.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Tamil Tigers crushed -\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1972 Tamil rebels launched an armed struggle for a separate homeland that triggered a nearly four-decade civil war estimated to have claimed up to 100,000 lives.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) campaign was marked by suicide bombings and assassinations, including of President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, and it was labelled a terrorist group by some Western nations and India.\n<\/p>\n
\n After a ceasefire failed, the Sinhalese-majority government crushed the Tigers in an all-out military offensive in 2009, killing their founder and leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.\n<\/p>\n
\n The operation was criticised for its brutality, with troops accused of killing at least 40,000 Tamil civilians.\n<\/p>\n
\n The United Nations Human Rights Council has demanded an independent investigation into war crimes in the conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Easter bloodshed -\n<\/p>\n
\n Sri Lanka was about to mark a decade since the end of the Tamil separatist war when its capital was struck by new terror attacks on Easter Sunday this year.\n<\/p>\n
\n A series of suicide bombings on three packed churches and three luxury hotels on April 21 killed 269 people including 45 foreigners.\n<\/p>\n
\n The government blamed a local jihadi group while the Islamic State group also claimed responsibility.\n<\/p>\n
\n It sparked anti-Muslim riots in which one Muslim man was lynched and hundreds of homes, shops and mosques vandalised.\n<\/p>\n
\n A state of emergency was relaxed in August.\n<\/p>\n
\n The attacks took place amid a power struggle between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and both have backed down from running in the upcoming presidential election.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Tourism and tea -\n<\/p>\n
\n Following the end of the civil war, international tourism flourished in Sri Lanka with more than two million visitors per year since 2016 compared to 448,000 in 2009.\n<\/p>\n
\n But after the Easter bombings, the country estimates it will lose about $1.5 billion in tourism revenue in 2019 because of a sharp dip in arrivals.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sri Lanka's main export is tea, with more than 90 percent of its production traded abroad. It ranks with China and Kenya as the top international exporters.\n<\/p>\n
\n The garment industry and remittances from workers abroad are also key sources of revenue.\n<\/p>\n
\n Growth is forecast at 2.7 percent in 2019, after an average of 5.6 percent between 2010 and 2018, according to the World Bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Indian Ocean nation of Sri Lanka, which holds presidential elections on Saturday, emerged a decade ago from a devastating civil war to be rocked again this year by a series of Easter suicide bombings. Here are some key facts: - Mostly Buddhist - The teardrop-shaped tropical island off the southern tip of India is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-42882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n