[Analytics] 7 arrested after eight explosions kill 207, injure hundreds in bloody Easter Sunday attacks

Eighth blast said to be a suicide bombing in a home that was being searched by police. Sri Lanka’s most senior Catholic figure called on the government to find the attackers and ‘punish them mercilessly’, reported the South China Morning Post.

Sri Lankan officials say the death toll from eight bomb blasts that struck the capital Colombo on Easter Sunday has climbed to 207, and several suspects have been arrested.

The eighth blast was carried out by a suicide bomber and killed three police officers, a police source said. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attacker detonated his explosives when police entered a house in a northern suburb of the capital Colombo to carry out a search.

A seventh explosion was reported at a hotel in Dehiwala, near the national zoo.

At least 35 foreigners have been confirmed dead so far in the string of attacks that mainly targeted hotels and churches. About 450 people were also wounded in the worst bout of violence in the South Asian country since its civil war ended a decade ago.

Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry said seven suspects linked to the blasts have been arrested, although there are conflicting reports about how many people have been detained.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned the attacks as “cowardly” and said the government was working to “contain the situation”.

Sri Lanka’s most senior Catholic figure called on the government to find the attackers and “punish them mercilessly”.

“I would also like to ask the government to hold a very impartial strong inquiry and find out who is responsible behind this act and also to punish them mercilessly, because only animals can behave like that,” Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, told reporters.

The Sri Lankan government declared a curfew with immediate effect and major social media networks and messaging apps, including Facebook and WhatsApp, have been blocked inside the country to prevent misinformation and rumours.

Images circulating on social media and local news stations showed extensive damage at one of three churches targeted in the near simultaneous blasts on Sunday morning.

Much of the church roof was blown out in the explosion, with roof tiles and splintered wood littering the floor and pools of blood in between wounded worshippers.

The injured flooded into local hospitals, where officials reported hundreds of wounded were being admitted.

The nature of the blasts was not immediately clear and there were no immediate claims of responsibility.

But documents show that Sri Lanka’s police chief Pujuth Jayasundara issued an intelligence alert to top officers 10 days ago, warning that suicide bombers planned to hit “prominent churches”.

“A foreign intelligence agency has reported that the NTJ (National Thowheeth Jama’ath) is planning to carry out suicide attacks targeting prominent churches as well as the Indian high commission in Colombo,” the alert said.

The NTJ is a radical Muslim group in Sri Lanka that was linked last year to the vandalisation of Buddhist statues.

The first blast was reported at St Anthony’s Shrine, a well-known Catholic Church in the capital Colombo.

A second deadly explosion was then confirmed at St Sebastian’s, a church in the town of Negombo, north of the capital.

“A bomb attack to our church, please come and help if your family members are there,” read a post in English on the church’s Facebook page.

Soon after, police confirmed that a third church in the town of Batticaloa had been hit, along with three high-end hotels in the capital.

Hospital sources said British, Dutch and American citizens were among the dead, with Britons and Japanese among those injured in the attacks.

Four Chinese nationals were injured, the Chinese embassy to Sri Lanka said.

President Maithripala Sirisena said in an address that he was shocked by the explosions and appealed for calm.

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On Twitter, Wickremesinghe wrote: “I strongly condemn the cowardly attacks on our people today.

“I call upon all Sri Lankans during this tragic time to remain united and strong. Please avoid propagating unverified reports and speculation. The government is taking immediate steps to contain this situation.”

The hotels targeted in the attack are all popular destinations for tourists, among them the Cinnamon Grand, which is near the prime minister’s official residence in Colombo.

An official at the hotel said the blast there had hit the restaurant, and reported at least one person had been killed.

At the Shangri-La hotel, there was extensive damage on the second floor restaurant, with windows blown out and electrical wires hanging from the ceiling.

“Emergency meeting called in a few minutes. Rescue operations underway,” Sri Lanka’s Minister of Economic Reforms and Public Distribution, Harsha de Silva, said in a tweet on his verified account.

He said he had been to two of the attacked hotels and was at the scene at St Anthony’s Shrine, where he described “horrible scenes”.

“I saw many body parts strewn all over,” he tweeted, adding that there were “many casualties including foreigners”.

“Please stay calm and indoors,” he added.

Embassies in Colombo warned their citizens to shelter in place, and Sri Lankan Airlines told customers to arrive at the airport four hours ahead of flights because of ramped-up security in the wake of the attacks.

Only around six per cent of mainly Buddhist Sri Lanka is Catholic, but the religion is seen as a unifying force because it includes people from both the Tamil and majority Sinhalese ethnic groups.

Pope Francis expressed his sadness at the attacks, saying he stood with the victims of “such cruel violence”.

“I learned with sadness the news of the attacks which today, Easter Sunday, brought mourning and pain,” Francis said in his traditional Easter address at the Vatican. “I want to express my affectionate closeness with the Christian community, attacked while it was at prayer, and to all the victims of such cruel violence.”

There have been no attacks in Sri Lanka linked to foreign Islamist groups, despite local media reports that a 37-year-old Sri Lankan was killed in Syria in 2016 while fighting for Islamic State.

In January, Sri Lankan police seized a haul of explosives and detonators stashed near a wildlife sanctuary following the arrest of four men from a newly formed radical Muslim group.

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