Indonesia family’s neighbors: No warnings of ‘barbaric act’

SURABAYA, Indonesia — The Muslim family that carried out suicide attacks on three churches in Indonesia’s second-largest city, killing a dozen people as well as its two young daughters, lived comfortably in an upper-middle class suburb and was on friendly terms with a Christian neighbor.

The coordinated bombings on Sunday, followed on Monday by a suicide attack by another family on police headquarters in Surabaya, have horrified Indonesians who typically see their Muslim-majority country as diverse and tolerant.

Neighbors said there were no signs members of the family were planning the acts of violence that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo condemned as “barbaric” and “beyond humanity.” They had lived in the leafy Wonorejo Asri residential community since 2010 and had a good income from the father’s business selling herbal medicines, neighbors said.

According to police, on Sunday morning the two sons, aged 16 and 18, rode a motorcycle into a church courtyard and detonated their explosives. Puji Kuswati, the mother, attacked worshippers at another church with her daughters, aged 9 and 12, who police said were all wearing suicide vests. The father, Dita Oepriarto, detonated a car bomb outside a third church. Police initially gave his name as Dita Futrianto but corrected that based on his national identity card. All six died.

Raith Yunanto, who lives two houses from the family, said they were always welcoming to her, a minority Christian. She said she went shopping with Kuswati and they often exchanged different types of food and fruit.

“There was nothing strange about the family; they were like other devout Muslim families,” she said. “Their attitude and manner of dress were just like common Muslim people.”

“It’s difficult for us to accept how they can commit such a barbaric act against Christians,” Yunanto said. “The couple visited me when I gave birth and when my children were sick.”

She said she last saw members of the family when the daughters were riding bicycles with other children in front of her house on Saturday afternoon, the day before the bombings.

The eldest son, she said, was seen coming home from school activities wearing a colorful batik shirt that’s symbolic of diversity in Indonesia, a country of more than 260 million with dozens of ethnic groups and languages.

Dendri Oemiarti, Oepriarto’s younger sister, was wracked with grief when she spoke to The Associated Press on Monday and said her elderly parents were in a state of shock.

“What he has done has hurt us so deeply,” she said as tears flowed down her cheeks.

“What thoughts have influenced him? I do not understand. I do not know what changed my good brother to be so sadistic.”

Oemiarti said she was angry when she first heard about the church attacks and that children had been used to carry them out.

“I fainted when my sister, Dina, told me that the attack was done by our own brother,” she said.