Coffins of the victims of a series of bomb blasts are buried at cemetery Don David Katuwapitiya during the mass funeral in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The toll of Sunday’s attacks in Sri Lanka in the midst of the celebration of Easter rose on Tuesday, April 23 to 320 dead after several wounded succumbed to their injuries.
The toll is still growing in Sri Lanka . The wave of deadly attacks in the country on Sunday April 21 during Easter celebrations and in hotels left 320 dead. The previous report reported 290 dead, the number of injured remains around 500 .
Children are among those killed. “The current total is 45 children and adolescents dead […] and this figure could increase further , ” said Tuesday a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), Christophe Boulierac, stressing that other young victims “are injured and are currently fighting for their lives . “
In Negombo, a town about 30 kilometers north of the capital Colombo, 27 minors were killed and 10 others were injured in the bombing that targeted the Church of San Sebastian, said the Unicef. In Batticaloa, on the eastern coast of the island, 13 minors were killed, including an 18-month-old baby, the agency added, adding that these 40 dead children and adolescents were all of Sri Lankan nationality. In Colombo, 20 children were hospitalized, including four placed in intensive care unit.
The spokesperson also indicated that five foreign children and adolescents had perished in the attacks, without revealing their nationality, or the place where they were. Three of the four children of Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who was on vacation in Sri Lanka with his wife, are among the victims, a spokesperson for his ready-to-wear group Bestseller confirmed.
30 other foreigners were identified “as killed” . According to local authorities, a French national was also among the victims . The Sri Lankan authorities have since claimed to have made an identity mistake and have reconsidered this announcement.
“Not felt such sadness since the war”
Destroyed, relatives of victims collapse in the arms of their neighbors: Sri Lankans give free rein to their pain Tuesday during masses in tribute to the dead of the Sunday attacks, the worst the country has known since the end of civil war ten years ago.
“We have not felt such sadness since the war,” said Rashmi Fernando, a 36-year-old woman, as she took part in a ceremony in Saint Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, one of the three religious buildings. hit in the Sunday attacks. “I lost three cousins in the attack and another is in intensive care” , explains the young woman, accompanied by her daughters of 3 and 8 years.
“We are here to pay homage and to pray that my injured cousin will recover,” she adds. At least 310 people were killed and 500 injured in the suicide bombings on Easter Sunday. The island of 21 million residents paid tribute to them by observing three minutes of silence at 8:30 am local time, the time of the first explosion two days earlier, at the Saint-Antoine Catholic Church in Colombo.
The funeral has started
In San Sebastián, the traces of the explosion remain evident, shattered statues and church pews reduced to crumbs. More than a thousand people attended the funeral masses this Tuesday morning in an atmosphere heavy with sorrow.
A first coffin covered with flowers, containing the remains of a woman, appears. Her husband, an elderly man, stands beside her and cries without being able to stop.
Other coffins then parade one by one to receive the last rites in the presence of relatives of the dead. Some cry in each other’s arms, others stand in silence, looking haggard.
Overcome by emotion, a woman collapses. She is helped to sit on a chair to come to her senses. Sheben Mel, 22, says she has come to show her support for the community. “It’s a village here and we all help each other. When the tsunami hit in 2004, a lot of people also came here to pay their last respects, ” explains the young man.
Funeral ceremonies were also held in the Church of Saint Anthony of Colombo, a historic building targeted Sunday. Security measures were strict there, while a device was still discovered nearby Monday and exploded before it could be defused by the police.
40 arrests
At this point, authorities have arrested 40 people in the investigation into the attacks attributed to a local Islamist movement, the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.
Three government and military officials say a Syrian national is among around 40 people questioned by Sri Lankan police. “The counterterrorism unit arrested a Syrian national to ask him questions,” one of the officials said.
Two other officials confirmed this information, one of them specifying that he had been arrested “following the interrogation of suspects (Sri Lankan)” .
The Sri Lankan Minister of Defense said, for his part, this Tuesday, April 23 that the attacks in Sri Lanka seem to have been perpetrated in response to the attacks in the mosques of Christchurch in New Zealand. Sources close to the investigation said that two Sri Lankan Muslim brothers, members of the suicide bombers, played a key role in the attacks. ISIS claimed responsibility for these attacks.
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