24 people have been arrested, but no responsibility has yet been claimed, after the worst ever attack against Sri Lanka's small Christian minority.
Security personnel inspect the interior of St Sebastian's Church in Negombo on April 22, 2019, a day after the church was hit in series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka.
Authorities have ordered a state of emergency to be introduced from midnight on Monday, the president’s office said. Three churches were also targeted in that wave of blasts: Colombo’s historic St Anthony’s Shrine, the St Sebastian’s church in the town of Negombo – north of the capital – and the Zion Church in the east-coast town of Batticaloa.Hours later, police raided two addresses. There were explosions at both of these addresses, with three police officers killed at one location in a suicide blast.The Sunday attacks were the worst ever against Sri Lanka’s small Christian minority.
In recent years, there have also been clashes between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community and minority Muslims, and in March last year, the government imposed a 12-day state of emergency to quell anti-Muslim riots.The Sri Lankan government believes a local Islamist extremist group called the National Thowheeth Jama’ath was behind the deadly suicide bomb attacks, government spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne said on Monday.
Not much is known about the NTJ, a radical Muslim group that his been linked to the vandalising of Buddhist statues.
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