The death toll from the Sri Lanka attacks has risen to 290 dead, with a further 500 injured, according to an update from the nation’s security services.
It has not yet been revealed which group is responsible for the multiple attacks that primarily targeted churches and hotels in the island nation over Easter Sunday.
However, according to the Prime Minister, Ranil Wickresinghe, “the names that have come up are local,” and the government is looking into whether there were any overseas links. The PM also revealed that there had been some intelligence reports of such attacks. According to a report seen by the AFP, Sri Lanka’s police chief issued such a report concerning the National Thowheeth Jama’ath 10 days ago. The NTJ is a local islamist group which was linked to the vandalism of Buddhist statues in the nation.
However, the government has not specifically mentioned the group as being responsible for the attack. Similarly, no group has claimed responsibility for the devastating attacks.
At least 24 people have been arrested in connection with the attacks, which struck six primary targets.
In the first wave, the attackers targeted landmark churches, including the St. Anthony’s Shrine, in the capital Colombo, and St. Sebastien’s, in the city of Negombo. The Zion Church in Batticaloa was also targeted by the as-yet-unidentified attackers.
Three hotels in Colombo were also bombed; the Shangri-La hotel, Kingbury hotel, and the Grand Cinnamon hotel.
Two more attacks followed these, the first a blast in Dehiwala in which two people died Thereafter 3 police officers were killed in a blast in Dematogoda while attempting to arrest some suspects.
At the main airport in Colombo, an improvised explosive was safely defused.
While Sri Lanka was, until 2009, suffering the throes of a decades-long ethnoreligious civil war, the Easter attacks do not at the moment seem directly related to that period of conflict.
