COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) Nine bombings of churches, luxury hotels and other sites on Easter Sunday killed 290 people and wounded hundreds more in Sri Lankas deadliest violence since a devastating civil war in the South Asian island nation ended a decade ago.
Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardena described the blasts as a terrorist attack by religious extremists, and police said 13 suspects were arrested, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Wijewardena said most of the bombings were believed to have been suicide attacks.
The explosions mostly in or around Colombo, the capital collapsed ceilings and blew out windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests in one scene after another of smoke, soot, blood, broken glass, screams and wailing alarms. Victims were carried out of blood-spattered pews.
People were being dragged out, said Bhanuka Harischandra, of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was going to the Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed. People didnt know what was going on. It was panic mode.
He added: There was blood everywhere.
Most of those killed were Sri Lankans. But the three bombed hotels and one of the churches, St. Anthonys Shrine, are frequented by foreign tourists, and Sri Lankas Foreign Ministry said the bodies of at least 27 foreigners from a variety of countries were recovered.
The U.S. said several Americans were among the dead, while Britain, China, Japan and Portugal said they, too, lost citizens.
The Sri Lankan government imposed a nationwide curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and blocked most social media including Facebook and YouTube, saying it needed to curtail the spread of false information and ease tension in the country of about 21 million people.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said he feared the massacre could trigger instability in Sri Lanka, and he vowed to vest all necessary powers with the defense forces to take action against those responsible.
The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, called on Sri Lankas government to mercilessly punish those responsible because only animals can behave like that.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said at least 207 people were killed and 450 wounded. He said police found a safe house and a van used by the attackers.
The scale of the bloodshed recalled the worst days of Sri Lankas 26-year civil war, in which the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from the Buddhist-majority country. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.
Sri Lanka, situated off the southern tip of India, is about 70 percent Buddhist. Scattered incidents of anti-Christian harassment have occurred in recent years, but nothing on the scale of what happened Sunday.
There is also no history of violent Muslim militants in Sri Lanka. However, tensions have been running high more recently between hard-line Buddhist monks and Muslims.
Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks, as did countries around the world, and Pope Francis expressed condolences at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome.
I want to express my loving closeness to the Christian community, targeted while they were gathered in prayer, and all the victims of such cruel violence, Francis said.
Six nearly simultaneous blasts took place in the morning at the shrine and the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels in Colombo, as well as at two churches outside Colombo, according to a Sri Lankan military spokesman, Brig. Sumith Atapattu.
