Rotorua-based Sri Lankan woman Surangi De Silva Hettiarachchi. Photo / Stephen Parker
Bay of Plenty-based Sri Lankans have been left fearful of returning to their home country, following a string of brutal Easter terrorist attacks in the country.
At least 290 people were killed and 500 more injured in a wave of suicide bombings targeting churches and hotels at Easter in Sri Lanka.
Eight blasts ripped through landmarks around the capital Colombo, and on Sri Lanka's east coast, targeting Catholics and Christians, hotel guests and foreign tourists.
Thirteen people have been reported to have been arrested so far in relation to the highly-co-ordinated attacks.
Rotorua-based Sri Lankan woman Surangi De Silva Hettiarachchi said one of the explosions happened very close to where she grew up in Colombo.
She watched the news live for hours and said it was awful to see the death toll rising and more explosions going off.
Everyone knows everyone in Sri Lanka, so loads of her friends had lost close ones from the attacks, she said.
Hettiarachchi, who has been living in New Zealand for 14 years, said she was really looking forward to taking her two young girls back home for the first time, but now she felt scared.
She said her community was only just overcoming the losses from 30 years of war and this tragedy highlighted the awful reality that no one was safe in the world.
The attacks have been described as the worst violence in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war a decade ago.
Uma Melville, a Sri Lankan ex-pat from Whakatāne, said that when she lived in Colombo she went to church every week at St Anthony's Shrine in Kochchikade, which was bombed on Sunday.
"It's very scary. I can't," she said, unable to finish her sentence.
Melville, who visited family in Colombo earlier this year, was saddened by the attacks and said it was not something she ever would have expected to happen, especially on such an important day of celebration in the Catholic Church.
"It's a very popular church…[Easter Sunday] is a very nice day and everybody is celebrating and going to church," she said.
She said two people in her extended family were injured in the attacks but were in a stable condition.
With much of her family still living in Sri Lanka, she feared for their safety and was worried something more might happen.
"You can't trust anywhere. Staying home is a good idea," she said.
Melville married Whakatāne man Keith Melville and moved to New Zealand in 2006.