Sri Lanka Easter Bombings: Mass Casualties in Churches and Hotels
13 suspects arrested after a series of church and hotel bombings on Easter Sunday kills 207 people and wounds 450.
A series of coordinated bombings struck churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killing 207 people in the worst attacks in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war 10 years ago.
At least 450 people were wounded after the island nation was hit by a total of eight explosions, police said, adding several of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers.
Most of the victims were Sri Lankan and killed in three churches where worshippers attended Easter Sunday services. Three other bombings struck luxury hotels - the Cinnamon Grand, the Kingsbury and the Shangri-La - located in the heart of the capital Colombo, killing at least 35 foreigners.
Among the dead were Japanese, Dutch, Chinese, British, American and Portuguese tourists.
"People were being dragged out," Bhanuka Harischandra of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was at the Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed.
"People didn't know what was going on. It was panic mode. There was blood everywhere."
No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the carnage in a country that was at war for decades with Tamil separatists until 2009, a time when bomb blasts in Colombo and elsewhere were common.
Yasmin Christina Rodrigo, 31, had returned home for a brief Easter holiday with her family. She was at St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo to attend the morning worship when a bomb detonated.
"I was seated in one of the middle rows and could hear a sudden noise. I felt numb as small pieces of brick and soot covered my body… Suddenly there were loud screams and weeping. The hall was consumed by a burning smell, and people were screaming and scrambling out… I managed to get out of the pew, I saw a pile of people lying on the floor soaked in blood and soot," Rodrigo told Al Jazeera.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks saying it is "an attempt to make the country and its economy unstable".
He held an emergency meeting with the country's top military officials of the National Security Council and called for an emergency meeting of the nation's parliament on Monday.
"I condemn these attacks which targeted religious places and some hotels. We all should join hands to protect law and order," Wickremesinghe said.
Thirteen people were arrested in connection with the string of deadly blasts, police said.
"So far the names that have come up are local," but investigators will look into whether the attackers had any "overseas links", Wickremesinghe said.
The seventh blast occurred at a hotel near the national zoo in the capital, killing two people, police said, while the eighth hit the suburb of Orugodawatta, north of Colombo, when officers entered a residence to search it.
The explosion brought down the upper level of the home and killed three police officers, the police source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"During the 30 years of civil war we had lots of explosions in Colombo. We are used to the airport getting blown up and the central bank, things like that. But it's been 10 years of peace and we got used to that. So that's why it's really surprising and shocking," said Colombo resident Mangala Karunaratne.
'Impartial inquiry'
Local Christian groups have said they faced increasing intimidation from some hardline Buddhist monks in recent years. Last year, there were clashes between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community and minority Muslims, with some Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam.
Sri Lanka's most senior Catholic figure called on the government to find the attackers behind the deadly blasts.
"I would also like to ask the government to hold a very impartial strong inquiry and find out who is responsible behind this act and also to punish them mercilessly, because only animals can behave like that," Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told reporters.
Last year, there were 86 verified incidents of discrimination, threats and violence against Christians, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.
Out of Sri Lanka's total population of about 22 million, 70 percent are Buddhist, 12.6 percent Hindu, 9.7 percent Muslim and 7.6 percent Christian, according to the country's 2012 census.
A hotel official at the Cinnamon Grand said a suicide bomber blew himself up at the facility's restaurant. "He came up to the top of the queue and set off the blast," he said.
The series of attacks started with the bombing of St Anthony's Shrine in the capital. Five other blasts followed within half an hour, including the bombings on St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, about 30km from the capital, and another in Batticaloa, 250km east of the capital.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the wounded were being evacuated while security forces cordoned off the areas and search operations were under way.
Photos circulating on social media showed the roof of one church had been blown almost entirely off in the blast.
The floor was littered with a mixture of roof tiles, splintered wood and blood.
Several people could be seen covered in blood, some trying to help those with more serious wounds.
Government response
The Sri Lankan government declared a nationwide curfew with immediate effect, Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said.
Government officials also said major social media networks and messaging apps, including Facebook and WhatsApp, were blocked inside the country to prevent misinformation and rumours.
"This is only a temporary measure," Udaya R Seneviratne, secretary to the president, said in a statement.
Al Jazeera's Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Colombo, said the crisis appeared to be over by Sunday night.
"We're hearing that Colombo national hospital is still receiving casualties brought in from the multiple locations.
"In terms of law enforcement, we've been hearing that all festivities have been cancelled, that security in and around the city has been tightened," Fernandez said.
"It's still very open-ended … it's too early [to speculate who is responsible] but security in the capital and the airport has been stepped up following the attacks."
Coordinated attacks
Rajiva Wijesinha, a former member of the Sri Lankan parliament, told Al Jazeera the coordinated nature of the attacks shocked the country.
"It's actually extremely chilling. We've never had anything of this sort before. Sri Lanka had a terrible time under Tamil Tiger terrorism for about 25 years and then there was a great sense of relief, which I am afraid the West has been fighting with us about, when we got rid of the Tiger terrorists," Rajiva said.
"But the Tiger terrorists were never as well organised and never quite as brilliant in synchronisation and this is obviously something on a much larger scale, which is frankly quite terrifying," he said.
"The range of these attacks and the concentration on the Christian churches and then the hotels as well suggest we are dealing with something really quite horrible."
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Colombo, Ashwin Hemmathagama, a reporter with the Daily FT, said the attacks were a blow to the country's tourism sector.
"At the moment police have cordoned off the areas and cautioned the public to remain vigilant. They have asked the public to stay indoors and avoid hasty decisions because investigations are under way," Hemmathagama said.
"After the civil war ended, almost a decade ago, the tourism industry was picking up. Basically, everything was back to its current perspective, but unfortunately this kind of attack will definitely cripple the tourism sector."
Sri Lanka's government was "aware of information regarding a possible attack" before a series of deadly bomb blasts rocked hotels and churches in the capital Colombo and two other cities, according to the country's prime minister.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, speaking to reporters late on Sunday, acknowledged that "information was there" about possible attacks.
"We must also look into why adequate precautions were not taken," he said.
The coordinated assaults, which killed at least 207 people and wounded more than 450 others, was the worst violence in the Indian Ocean island nation since its civil war ended a decade ago.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.
A police spokesman said 13 suspects were arrested in connection to the bombings.
Wickremesinghe said "the names that have come up are local", but said investigators will look into whether the attackers had any "overseas links". World leaders offered help in the probe, he added.
Al Jazeera's Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Colombo, described the prime minister's statement "as a dig" at President Maithripala Sirisena, who heads the security forces.
Ties between the two leaders are at an all-time low following Sirisena's sacking of Wickremesinghe in October. The move triggered a weeks-long political crisis that ended only when the Supreme Court overturned that decision.
'Turbulent relationship'
Fernandez said Wickremesinghe's statement on receiving warning "reflects the rather turbulent relationship between the two leaders" following October's constitutional crisis.
"The president retained charge of the police, but the prime minister said neither he nor his ministers had been informed of this information that was available," she said.
For his part, Sirisena earlier on Sunday said he ordered a special police task force and the military to investigate who was behind the attacks and their agenda.
The government declared a curfew in Colombo and blocked access to social media messaging sites, including Facebook and WhatsApp. The military was deployed and security was stepped up at the Colombo international airport.
Ruwan Wijewardena, Sri Lanka's defence minister, described the bombings as a "terrorist attack" by religious groups.
"We believe these were coordinated attacks, and one group was behind them," he said. Most of the explosions were believed to have been suicide attacks.
Six nearly simultaneous blasts took place in the morning in Colombo at St Anthony's Shrine, just as church services began, and the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels. The powerful explosions collapsed ceilings and blew out windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests in one scene after another of smoke, blood, broken glass, screams and wailing alarms.
Victims were carried out of blood-spattered pews.
"People were being dragged out," said Bhanuka Harischandra of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was going to the city's Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed. "People didn't know what was going on. It was panic mode."
He added, "There was blood everywhere."
'Merciless punishment'
After a lull of a few hours, two more explosions occurred at St Sebastian Catholic church in Negombo, a mostly Catholic town 37km north of Colombo, and at the Protestant Zion church in the town of Batticaloa, about 300km to the east.
Three police officers were killed while conducting a search at a suspected safe house in Dematagoda, on the outskirts of Colombo, when its occupants apparently detonated explosives to prevent arrest, according to the defence minister.
Most of those killed were Sri Lankans. But the three hotels and one of the churches, St Anthony's Shrine, are frequented by foreign tourists, and Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said the bodies of at least 27 foreigners from a variety of countries were recovered.
The US said "several" of its citizens were among the dead, while Britain and China said they, too, lost nationals.
The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, called on Sri Lanka's government to "mercilessly" punish those responsible "because only animals can behave like that".
Bloody civil war
The scale of the bloodshed recalled the worst days of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, in which the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from the Buddhist-majority country. During the war, the Tigers and other rebels carried out a multitude of bombings. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.
Sri Lanka bombing: 'No one can dry our tears today'
Mangala Karunaratne, a resident of Colombo, said: "During the 30 years of civil war we had lots of explosions in Colombo. We are used to the airport getting blown up and the central bank, things like that. But it's been 10 years of peace and we got used to that. So that's why it's really surprising and shocking."
Rajiva Wijesinha, a former member of Sri Lanka's parliament, called the attacks "extremely chilling".
"The range of these attacks and the concentration on the Christian churches and then the hotels as well suggest we are dealing with something really quite horrible," he said.
Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks, as did countries around the world, and Pope Francis expressed condolences at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome.
"I want to express my loving closeness to the Christian community, targeted while they were gathered in prayer, and all the victims of such cruel violence," Francis said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
A series of coordinated bombings struck churches and hotels on Easter Sunday killing 207 people in the worst attacks in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war 10 years ago.
At least 450 people were wounded after the island nation was hit by a total of eight explosions, police said, adding several of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers.
Most of the victims were Sri Lankan and killed in three churches where worshippers attended Easter Sunday services. Three other bombings struck luxury hotels - the Cinnamon Grand, the Kingsbury and the Shangri-La - located in the heart of the capital Colombo, killing at least 35 foreigners.
Among the dead were Japanese, Dutch, Chinese, British, American and Portuguese tourists.
"People were being dragged out," Bhanuka Harischandra of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was at the Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed.
"People didn't know what was going on. It was panic mode. There was blood everywhere."
No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the carnage in a country that was at war for decades with Tamil separatists until 2009, a time when bomb blasts in Colombo and elsewhere were common.
Yasmin Christina Rodrigo, 31, had returned home for a brief Easter holiday with her family. She was at St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo to attend the morning worship when a bomb detonated.
"I was seated in one of the middle rows and could hear a sudden noise. I felt numb as small pieces of brick and soot covered my body… Suddenly there were loud screams and weeping. The hall was consumed by a burning smell, and people were screaming and scrambling out… I managed to get out of the pew, I saw a pile of people lying on the floor soaked in blood and soot," Rodrigo told Al Jazeera.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks saying it is "an attempt to make the country and its economy unstable".
He held an emergency meeting with the country's top military officials of the National Security Council and called for an emergency meeting of the nation's parliament on Monday.
"I condemn these attacks which targeted religious places and some hotels. We all should join hands to protect law and order," Wickremesinghe said.
Thirteen people were arrested in connection with the string of deadly blasts, police said.
"So far the names that have come up are local," but investigators will look into whether the attackers had any "overseas links", Wickremesinghe said.
The seventh blast occurred at a hotel near the national zoo in the capital, killing two people, police said, while the eighth hit the suburb of Orugodawatta, north of Colombo, when officers entered a residence to search it.
The explosion brought down the upper level of the home and killed three police officers, the police source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"During the 30 years of civil war we had lots of explosions in Colombo. We are used to the airport getting blown up and the central bank, things like that. But it's been 10 years of peace and we got used to that. So that's why it's really surprising and shocking," said Colombo resident Mangala Karunaratne.
'Impartial inquiry'
Local Christian groups have said they faced increasing intimidation from some hardline Buddhist monks in recent years. Last year, there were clashes between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community and minority Muslims, with some Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam.
Sri Lanka's most senior Catholic figure called on the government to find the attackers behind the deadly blasts.
"I would also like to ask the government to hold a very impartial strong inquiry and find out who is responsible behind this act and also to punish them mercilessly, because only animals can behave like that," Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told reporters.
Last year, there were 86 verified incidents of discrimination, threats and violence against Christians, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.
Out of Sri Lanka's total population of about 22 million, 70 percent are Buddhist, 12.6 percent Hindu, 9.7 percent Muslim and 7.6 percent Christian, according to the country's 2012 census.
A hotel official at the Cinnamon Grand said a suicide bomber blew himself up at the facility's restaurant. "He came up to the top of the queue and set off the blast," he said.
The series of attacks started with the bombing of St Anthony's Shrine in the capital. Five other blasts followed within half an hour, including the bombings on St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, about 30km from the capital, and another in Batticaloa, 250km east of the capital.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the wounded were being evacuated while security forces cordoned off the areas and search operations were under way.
Photos circulating on social media showed the roof of one church had been blown almost entirely off in the blast.
The floor was littered with a mixture of roof tiles, splintered wood and blood.
Several people could be seen covered in blood, some trying to help those with more serious wounds.
Government response
The Sri Lankan government declared a nationwide curfew with immediate effect, Defence Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said.
Government officials also said major social media networks and messaging apps, including Facebook and WhatsApp, were blocked inside the country to prevent misinformation and rumours.
"This is only a temporary measure," Udaya R Seneviratne, secretary to the president, said in a statement.
Al Jazeera's Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Colombo, said the crisis appeared to be over by Sunday night.
"We're hearing that Colombo national hospital is still receiving casualties brought in from the multiple locations.
"In terms of law enforcement, we've been hearing that all festivities have been cancelled, that security in and around the city has been tightened," Fernandez said.
"It's still very open-ended … it's too early [to speculate who is responsible] but security in the capital and the airport has been stepped up following the attacks."
Coordinated attacks
Rajiva Wijesinha, a former member of the Sri Lankan parliament, told Al Jazeera the coordinated nature of the attacks shocked the country.
"It's actually extremely chilling. We've never had anything of this sort before. Sri Lanka had a terrible time under Tamil Tiger terrorism for about 25 years and then there was a great sense of relief, which I am afraid the West has been fighting with us about, when we got rid of the Tiger terrorists," Rajiva said.
"But the Tiger terrorists were never as well organised and never quite as brilliant in synchronisation and this is obviously something on a much larger scale, which is frankly quite terrifying," he said.
"The range of these attacks and the concentration on the Christian churches and then the hotels as well suggest we are dealing with something really quite horrible."
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Colombo, Ashwin Hemmathagama, a reporter with the Daily FT, said the attacks were a blow to the country's tourism sector.
"At the moment police have cordoned off the areas and cautioned the public to remain vigilant. They have asked the public to stay indoors and avoid hasty decisions because investigations are under way," Hemmathagama said.
"After the civil war ended, almost a decade ago, the tourism industry was picking up. Basically, everything was back to its current perspective, but unfortunately this kind of attack will definitely cripple the tourism sector."
Sri Lanka's government was "aware of information regarding a possible attack" before a series of deadly bomb blasts rocked hotels and churches in the capital Colombo and two other cities, according to the country's prime minister.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, speaking to reporters late on Sunday, acknowledged that "information was there" about possible attacks.
"We must also look into why adequate precautions were not taken," he said.
The coordinated assaults, which killed at least 207 people and wounded more than 450 others, was the worst violence in the Indian Ocean island nation since its civil war ended a decade ago.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.
A police spokesman said 13 suspects were arrested in connection to the bombings.
Wickremesinghe said "the names that have come up are local", but said investigators will look into whether the attackers had any "overseas links". World leaders offered help in the probe, he added.
Al Jazeera's Minelle Fernandez, reporting from Colombo, described the prime minister's statement "as a dig" at President Maithripala Sirisena, who heads the security forces.
Ties between the two leaders are at an all-time low following Sirisena's sacking of Wickremesinghe in October. The move triggered a weeks-long political crisis that ended only when the Supreme Court overturned that decision.
'Turbulent relationship'
Fernandez said Wickremesinghe's statement on receiving warning "reflects the rather turbulent relationship between the two leaders" following October's constitutional crisis.
"The president retained charge of the police, but the prime minister said neither he nor his ministers had been informed of this information that was available," she said.
For his part, Sirisena earlier on Sunday said he ordered a special police task force and the military to investigate who was behind the attacks and their agenda.
The government declared a curfew in Colombo and blocked access to social media messaging sites, including Facebook and WhatsApp. The military was deployed and security was stepped up at the Colombo international airport.
Ruwan Wijewardena, Sri Lanka's defence minister, described the bombings as a "terrorist attack" by religious groups.
"We believe these were coordinated attacks, and one group was behind them," he said. Most of the explosions were believed to have been suicide attacks.
Six nearly simultaneous blasts took place in the morning in Colombo at St Anthony's Shrine, just as church services began, and the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels. The powerful explosions collapsed ceilings and blew out windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests in one scene after another of smoke, blood, broken glass, screams and wailing alarms.
Victims were carried out of blood-spattered pews.
"People were being dragged out," said Bhanuka Harischandra of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was going to the city's Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed. "People didn't know what was going on. It was panic mode."
He added, "There was blood everywhere."
'Merciless punishment'
After a lull of a few hours, two more explosions occurred at St Sebastian Catholic church in Negombo, a mostly Catholic town 37km north of Colombo, and at the Protestant Zion church in the town of Batticaloa, about 300km to the east.
Three police officers were killed while conducting a search at a suspected safe house in Dematagoda, on the outskirts of Colombo, when its occupants apparently detonated explosives to prevent arrest, according to the defence minister.
Most of those killed were Sri Lankans. But the three hotels and one of the churches, St Anthony's Shrine, are frequented by foreign tourists, and Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said the bodies of at least 27 foreigners from a variety of countries were recovered.
The US said "several" of its citizens were among the dead, while Britain and China said they, too, lost nationals.
The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, called on Sri Lanka's government to "mercilessly" punish those responsible "because only animals can behave like that".
Bloody civil war
The scale of the bloodshed recalled the worst days of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, in which the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from the Buddhist-majority country. During the war, the Tigers and other rebels carried out a multitude of bombings. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.
Sri Lanka bombing: 'No one can dry our tears today'
Mangala Karunaratne, a resident of Colombo, said: "During the 30 years of civil war we had lots of explosions in Colombo. We are used to the airport getting blown up and the central bank, things like that. But it's been 10 years of peace and we got used to that. So that's why it's really surprising and shocking."
Rajiva Wijesinha, a former member of Sri Lanka's parliament, called the attacks "extremely chilling".
"The range of these attacks and the concentration on the Christian churches and then the hotels as well suggest we are dealing with something really quite horrible," he said.
Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks, as did countries around the world, and Pope Francis expressed condolences at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome.
"I want to express my loving closeness to the Christian community, targeted while they were gathered in prayer, and all the victims of such cruel violence," Francis said.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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