Police officers work at the scene at St. Sebastian Catholic Church, after bomb blasts ripped through churches and luxury hotels on Easter, in Negambo, Sri Lanka.
Authorities in Sri Lanka have accused a local Islamist movement in the investigation into the series of attacks that hit churches and hotels on Sunday, leaving 290 dead and around 500 injured, according to a new death toll. In Colombo, it is astonishment and a time of mourning, as the investigation led to the arrest of 24 people. The attacks have still not been claimed.
According to the government, a local Islamist movement is behind the wave of suicide bombings on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka , which have still not been claimed despite the number of arrests. A local Islamist movement, the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), is behind the attacks, government spokesman Rajitha Senaratne said on Monday.
The toll increased on Monday to 290 dead and 500 injured. In a matter of hours, bombs sowed death and desolation in luxury hotels and churches celebrating Easter Mass in several places on the South Asian island, which had not seen such an outburst of violence since the end. from the civil war ten years ago.
“Possible foreign aid”
While pointing to the NJT, the government spokesperson said he was “struggling to see how a small organization in this country can do all of this” . “We are investigating possible foreign aid and their other links, how they train suicide bombers, how they produced these bombs,” he added. The NJT became known last year in connection with acts of vandalism against Buddhist statues.
Ten days ago, he was also the subject of an alert sent to the police, according to which he was preparing suicide attacks against churches and the Indian embassy in Colombo.
The government has announced that the state of emergency will be declared as of midnight tonight (6.30 p.m. GMT) and that the curfew will be renewed. It will take effect at 8 p.m. local Monday evening and will be in place until 4 a.m. local Tuesday morning (2:30 p.m. GMT-10:30 p.m. GMT Monday), according to the government information service.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for these coordinated attacks, in connection with which the authorities have arrested 24 people at this stage. No details have been officially given on the suspects. President Maithripala Sirisena, who was abroad at the time of the attacks, returned to the country of 21 million on Monday and chaired a security council, his services said.
“We will not let the terrorists win”
A senior national police official issued an alert ten days ago, on the basis of information from “a foreign intelligence agency” , warning that an Islamist movement was planning “suicide bombings against important churches” and Embassy of India in Colombo.
The quoted group, the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NJT), became known last year in connection with acts of vandalism committed against Buddhist statues.
Monday morning in Negombo, a town about thirty kilometers north of the capital Colombo, the parishioner Dilip Fernando had returned in front of the Saint-Sébastien church, where he and his family narrowly escaped the carnage caused by one of the attacks. suicide targeting the Christian minority. “If the church had been open this morning, I would have gone inside. We are not afraid. We will not let the terrorists win. Never ! I will continue to go to church, ” he said.
“We are a resilient people”
Dozens of pairs of shoes belonging to the victims were gathered on the ground in front of the Catholic building. A man’s shoe, torn in half, bore dried blood. Inside, tiles fallen from the roof mixed with debris on the ground. The walls and religious statues were riddled with shards.
Following the lifting of the curfew at 6 a.m. local time (00:30 GMT), life seemed to return to normal in the country. People drove or motorbike to the office, tuk-tuk roamed the streets.
“Sri Lanka is like that. We are a resilient people. We saw so much violence during the civil war. To the outside world, it seems huge, but for us life goes on, ” said Nuwan Samarweera, a 50-year-old Colombo resident.
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