‘A river of blood’ flows in Sri Lanka
More than 200 killed, 450 injured in Easter Sunday bomb attacks.
As Christians in Sri Lanka gathered Sunday morning to celebrate Easter Mass, powerful explosions ripped through three churches packed with worshippers, leaving hundreds of victims amid a havoc of splintered and blood-spattered pews.
In what police said were coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by a single group, bombers also struck three hotels popular with tourists. At least 207 people were killed and 450 others injured, a police spokesman, Ruwan Gunasekera, said.
News of the bombings, the largest attack on South Asian Christians in recent memory, rip
pled out all Easter morning, interrupting celebrations across the world. Pope Francis, after celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Square, said the attacks had “brought mourning and sorrow” on the most important of Christian holidays.
A wave of explosions as worshippers celebrated Mass
Images from the bombing sites showed bloodied and shattered pews and victims lying on the floor of houses of worship. The walls and windows of the targeted hotels were blown out.
Some of the victims were killed as worshippers gath- ered for Mass at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo; St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, about 20 miles north of Colombo; and Zion Church in the eastern city of Batticaloa, officials said.
The attacks also targeted high-end hotels in the capital, including the Shangri-La, the Cinnamon Grand and the Kingsbury.
Mangala Samaraweera, the Sri Lankan finance min- ister, called the explosions “a well-coordinated attempt to create murder, mayhem and anarchy.”
A witness, Sarita Marlou, who was at the Shangri-La hotel, wrote in a Facebook post that one blast occurred at 8:57 a.m. in the Table One Restaurant on the third floor where people had gathered for brunch.
“Felt the blast all the way up to the 17th floor where we were sleeping,” she wrote. “Few minutes later, we were asked to evacuate the hotel. While running down the stairs, saw a lot of blood on the floor but we were still clueless as to what really happened.”
Marlou said the guests had been stuck outside for more than two hours before being ushered back inside as the sun got hot. But they still were not cleared to go back to their rooms, she wrote.
N.A. Sumanapala, a shopkeeper near St. Anthony’s Shrine who said he had run inside to help, said: “It was a river of blood. Ash was falling like snow.”
13 arrested in connection with blasts
Authorities said 13 people had been arrested and identified in connec tion with the attacks. The government also said that suicide bombers had set off the explosions.
“We believe these were coordinated attacks, and one group was behind them,” Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene said. He urged the news media not to report the names of the attackers or to make them “martyrs.”
Three officers were killed while hunting for the attack- ers at a housing complex in the Colombo suburb of Dematagoda, officials said. Police said they had found explosives inside one of the apartments and that a firefight had broken out between officers and the suspects inside the building.
One suspect detonated explosives during ques- tioning by police inside a home in the suburb. Officials at the site said they believed the attacks had been planned there. As authorities questioned members of the group, another suspect escaped, and was being sought by a circling helicopter.
Wijewardene said that police units had been put on alert a week ago by the force’s chief inspector, Pujith Jayasundara, about potential attacks on churches. It was unclear what steps had been taken to safeguard against attacks.
Attacks followed a police warning
A top Sri Lankan police official issued a letter on April 11 to government secu- rity officials warning of pos- sible suicide attacks planned at Catholic churches.
“You should instruct all personnel to pay strict heed to this report and be extra vigilant and cautious of the V.I.P.s and locations coming under your purview,” wrote Priyalal Dassanayake, the deputy inspector general.
The letter, citing foreign intelligence officials, identi- fied the group suspected of planning attacks as National Thowheeth Jama’ath. It named individual members of the group, which it said advocates spreading Islam by killing “nonbelievers.”
Sri Lanka shuts down social media
Sri Lankan officials also temporarily blocked several soc i al media net- works, including Facebook and Instagram. Users also reported being unable to access the messaging ser- vices WhatsApp and Viber. The government set a nation- wide curfew from 6 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. today.
Though Sunday’s attacks have no known link to soc i al m edia, Sri Lanka has a troubled history with racial violence incited on the platforms. Its ban was an extraordinary step that reflects growing global con- cerns about social media.
Last year, Sri Lanka briefly blocked social networks after viral misinformation and calls to anti-Muslim vio- lence, circulating largely on Facebook, were blamed for a wave of riots and lynchings. Government officials had repeatedly warned Face- book, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, that the posts could lead to violence. Though the company promised to hire more moderators and improve communication, the episode left officials wary of the social media giant.
Wounds of past violence still fresh
Sri Lanka’s civil war ended 10 years ago, but memories of urban carnage are still fresh, particularly for resi- dents of the capital. During the conflict, brutal bombings of airports, bus stations, banks, cafes and hotels were not uncommon.
The Cinnamon Grand, one of the hotels targeted on Sunday, had been blown up before, in 1984, when it was called the Hotel Lanka Oberoi.
T he Roman Ca t holic Church in Sri Lanka traces its roots to the arrival of the Portuguese in the early 1500s and the subsequent influence of Portuguese, Dutch and Irish mission- aries. Sri Lankan Catho- lics make up a significant minority of the country’s population, accounting for roughly 6% of the country and centered largely in the Colombo-Negombo area.
Meenakshi Ganguly, the South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that given Sri Lanka’s long history of ethnic and religious violence, including a nearly three-decade civil war that ended only in 2009, it was premature to jump to conclusions about whether radicalized Muslims might have played a role in the assault.
Foreigners are caught in the carnage
As Sri Lankan news media reported that 35 foreigners were among the dead, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement that 25 unidentified bodies were believed to be foreign citizens, and that nine other foreigners were missing.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said several Americans had been killed. “The United States condemns in the strongest terms the terror attacks in Sri Lanka,” he said in a statement.
World leaders condemn bombings
Pope Francis, after celebrating Easter Mass in St. Peter’s Square, said, “I want to express my affectionate closeness to the Christian community, struck while it was gathered in prayer, and all the victims of such cruel violence.”
He added, “I entrust to the Lord all those who were tragically killed.”
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, called the blasts “horrific” in a post on Twitter. “There is no place for such barbarism in our region,” he wrote. India is Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor and shares many cultural and economic ties with the island nation.
Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany were among the European leaders to express their grief.