A student at Sidwell Friends School in Washington was one of a handful of Americans killed in Sri Lanka over the weekend.

The private school said that Kieran Shafritz de Zoysa, a fifth grader, was one of at least 290 victims in the suicide bombings that took place around the country targeting Christians on Easter.

De Zoysa was on a leave of absence from the school for the year. He was living and studying in Sri Lanka.

In a letter, school principal Mamadou Guèye said de Zoysa was “passionate about learning, he adored his friends, and he was incredibly excited about returning to Sidwell Friends this coming school year.”

The school says it plans to make counselors available to students.

Nearly 300 people were killed and hundreds more wounded after explosions tore through Sri Lanka in a series of coordinated blasts that struck three churches and three hotels on Easter Sunday. It marked the country’s worst violence since the end of its civil war in 2009. The blasts started as people gathered for Mass on Easter Sunday. In Colombo, the country’s capital, bombings were reported at St. Anthony’s Shrine and three high-end hotels: the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand, and the Kingsbury.

Explosions were also reported at St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, north of the capital, and at Zion Church in Batticaloa, in the country’s Eastern Province.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but police say 13 suspects linked to the explosions have been arrested, The Associated Press reported. Sri Lanka’s defense minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, described the violence as a terrorist attack carried out by religious extremists and said he believed they were part of one group.

Reporting from NPR was included in this story, which originally appeared on WAMU.