Almost 300 people have been killed and around 500 injured in coordinated bombings at hotels and churches across Sri Lanka. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed two Australians from the same family, who were living in Sri Lanka, were among those killed. Two other Australians are among the hundreds of people who were injured in the Easter Sunday attacks. Suicide bombers behind attacks The attacks were carried out by members of a domestic militant group called National Thowfeek Jamaath, a government official said. All of the bombers were Sri Lankan citizens, but authorities suspect foreign links, Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said. Earlier, government forensic investigator Ariyananda Welianga said analysis had revealed the attackers were suicide bombers. There were four attacks at 8:45am on Sunday morning (local time). A fifth occurred five minutes later before a sixth explosion at 9:05am. Mr Welianga said two suicide bombers carried out an attack on the Shangri-La hotel. One suicide bomber each also then attacked the Cinnamon Grand hotel, the Kingsbury hotel and St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, St Sebastian's church in Negombo and the Zion church in Batticaloa. In the early afternoon there was a seventh blast at a hotel opposite the national zoo, and an eighth explosion near an overpass on the outskirts of Colombo at 2:15pm. These two later blasts are still under investigation. Suspects detonated explosives at a safe house near the overpass blast, killing three police officers. Police have arrested 13 Sri Lankans in relation to the attacks. The attacks come almost a decade after the end of a bloody civil war. Here's how events unfolded. Explosions set off during Easter Sunday services The attacks appeared to target the country's Christians, who make up 7.4 per cent of Sri Lanka. ( AP: Eranga Jayawardena Two Catholic churches and one evangelical church were targeted in three separate cities. St Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, is a popular place of worship and tourist attraction. Alex Agileson, who was in the vicinity, said buildings in the surrounding area shook with the blast. Soldiers secure the area around St Anthony's Shrine after the blast. ( AP: Eranga Jayawardena More than 50 people were killed at St Sebastian's in Negombo, north of Colombo. Pictures show the church's roof was blown off in the blast. St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, a Catholic majority town. ( Facebook: St. Sebastian's Church - Waga, Sri Lanka Media reported 25 people were killed in an attack on the evangelical Zion Church in Batticaloa on the country's east coast. Popular luxury hotels targeted Three five-star hotels in Colombo that are frequented by foreigners were attacked on Sunday morning. A tourist, who asked not to be named, told the ABC she was eating at the second-floor restaurant of the Shangri-La when there were two blasts about 10 seconds apart. She said the area had been full of visitors, including children. "There was just screaming and everywhere I looked there was blood," she said. "Everyone was just hiding trying to work out what had just happened and what was going to happen and we just didn't know." Two explosions happened at a restaurant at the Shangri-la hotel. ( AP: Eranga Jayawardena The Cinnamon Grand confirmed on Facebook that an explosion happened in a restaurant on the ground floor. Loading The Kingsbury Hotel was also attacked. Two more blasts outside Colombo An explosion was detonated at about 1:45pm on Sunday at the New Tropical Inn opposite the national zoo in Dehiwala, south of Colombo. An eyewitness on local TV said he saw some body parts including a severed head lying on the ground near the hotel. The zoo has since been closed. At 2:15pm another blast occurred at a house in Dematagoda, a suburb in Colombo, during a police raid. Three police were killed in the explosion. Late on Sunday night police reported a petrol bomb attack had occurred at a mosque, while arson attacks on two shops owned by Muslims were reported in different parts of the country. Worst violence since civil war Sunday's attacks are the worst violence in Sri Lanka since the end of the civil war a decade ago. The Sri Lankan Defence Minister has described the bombings as a terrorist attack by religious extremists. Sir Lankan authorities have confirmed they had prior information about the attacks on churches 10 days before the bombings. ABC/wires<doc-sep>Eight explosions hit Sri Lanka on Sunday, with nearly simultaneous blasts at churches during Easter services and at hotels frequented by foreign guests, police and media said. Sri Lankan officials said at least 290 people, including at least 32 foreigners, had been killed in the blasts in Colombo and elsewhere. More than 500 others were injured. The attacks were blamed on religious extremists. St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo was one of the churches targeted by blasts. Citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey and India were reportedly among those killed. St. Anthony's Shrine (top photo) in the north of the capital, Colombo, St. Sebastian's Church in the nearby town of Negombo, and Zion Church in the eastern town of Batticaloa were all hit. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said later on Sunday that eight local suspects had been arrested in connection with the blasts and that authorities were investigating overseas links. Hundreds of injured have been transported to hospitals. Curfew imposed Explosions also hit three five-star hotels, killing and injuring several people, including foreigners, police and security officials said. The hotels were named as the Cinnamon Grand, the Kingsbury and the Shangri-La, all in the center of Colombo. Later on Sunday, two additional blasts occurred on the outskirts of Colombo, a military spokesman said. One of those explosions, at a hotel in the southern Colombo suburb of Dehiwala, killed two people, according to police. The other, in the north of the city, killed three police officers when the upper floor of a house they were searching collapsed. Police carried out house searches following the blast The government has declared a curfew with immediate effect. The Defense Ministry said the curfew would begin at 6 p.m. local time (1230 UTC) and end at 6 a.m. local time (0030 UTC). Police, however, later said the curfew would last "until further notice." Government officials also said major social media platforms and messaging apps had been blocked to prevent the spread of misinformation and rumors. Retaliatory attacks After the attacks were blamed on religious extremists, fears of retaliatory attacks proved accurate. A mosque in the northwestern district of Puttalam was hit by a petrol bomb, and two shops owned by Muslims in the western district of Kalutara were struck by arson attacks. Emergency meeting The prime minister, who described the attacks as "cowardly," has convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council following the blasts. In a tweet, he called on Sri Lankans "to remain united and strong." The spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Steffen Seibert, via Twitter, expressed his horror at the news that Christians in Sri Lanka were attacked and killed during Easter Masses, adding: "We grieve for them and pray for the injured and families." "Terrorism, religious hate and intolerance must not win out," the tweet said. Merkel also sent a message of condolence to Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, in which she called it "shocking that people who had gathered to celebrate Easter together were a deliberate target of these perfidious attacks." The archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith, called on the Sri Lankan government to punish those behind the attack "mercilessly, because only animals can behave like that." New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose country recently experienced deadly shootings at two mosques in which 50 died, condemned in a statement the attacks in Sri Lanka. "New Zealand condemns all acts of terrorism and our resolve has only been strengthened by the attack on our soil," Ardern said. "New Zealand rejects all forms of extremism and stands for freedom of religion and the right to worship safely." The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, denounced in an appeal at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome what he called the "cruel violence" of the attacks. "I entrust to the Lord all those who were tragically killed and pray for the injured and all those who are suffering as a result of this dramatic event," he added. The pontiff visited Sri Lanka in 2015. No claim of responsibility There have been no immediate claims of responsibility. Some Christian groups have spoken of growing intimidation by hard-line Buddhist monks in recent years. Members of the Buddhist community clashed last year with minority Muslims, with some Buddhists alleging that Muslims had been compelling people to convert to Islam. Sri Lanka is a majority-Buddhist country, with just 6% of the population adhering to the Catholic faith. The country has experienced few major attacks since the end of a civil war 10 years ago. One blast badly damaged the luxury Shangri-La Hotel. During the conflict, which came to a close in 2009, the separatist Tamil Tigers carried out random bombings at various public sites, including a Buddhist temple and popular tourist hotels. The rebels were fighting to create an independent homeland for the Tamils, an ethnic minority. Easter is the central period in the Christian calendar, with Easter Sunday celebrated as the day on which Jesus is believed by the faithful to have risen from the dead. aw, tj/jm (AP, Reuters, AFP) Every day, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. Sign up for the newsletter here.<doc-sep>(CNN) A wave of attacks in Sri Lanka left more than 250 people dead and hundreds more injured on Easter Sunday after a series of explosions tore through churches and hotels on what should have been a day of rest and worship. By Sunday afternoon, there were eight blasts and the government had announced an island-wide curfew starting at 6 p.m. local (8:30 a.m. ET Sunday) until the following morning. Social media sites were also blocked as investigations took place. "These are certainly acts of terror," the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to the UK Manisha Gunasekera told CNN on Sunday. "This is an attack against the whole of Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka is very multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country and the whole country comes together in celebration of Easter Sunday." What happened? There were almost simultaneous explosions on Sunday morning, which hit busy Easter services at churches in three separate cities. Targets included St. Anthony's Shrine in Colombo, St. Sebastian's Church more than 22 miles north in Negombo, and the evangelical Zion Church in Batticaloa, 196 miles away from Colombo on Sri Lanka's east coast. Additional explosions occurred on Sunday morning at high-end hotels in Colombo: the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La Hotel and The Kingsbury. By the afternoon, a seventh and eighth blast occurred at a hotel in front of the Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia and at a private house in Mahawila Gardens, in Dematagoda, while police officers conducted a house raid. Four days after the coordinated attacks, the Sri Lankan Health Ministry revised the death toll, saying 253 people had died. That toll is significantly lower than the 359 initially reported to CNN by a Colombo police spokesman this week. The health ministry cited the condition of remains and the difficulty in identifying them for the discrepancy. Who carried out the attacks? It is still unclear who caused the attacks. What is known is at least seven people have been arrested in connection with the bombings and three police officers were killed during a house raid in connection to the attacks. "The Colombo crime division... went to a house at [Mahawila Gardens] in Dematagoda, in relation to information received with regard to these hotels explosions," Police Spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara, said at a press conference. "When crime division officials started questioning the people in the house, two explosions occurred, One sub inspector and two constables of police have been killed and one constable was taken to the national hospital with wounds," he added. High Commissioner Gunasekera, told CNN they had information that the attacks were suicide bombings. Who was targeted? Sri Lanka's minority Christian community appeared to be the main target of the seemingly coordinated attacks. Christianity is a minority religion in Sri Lanka, accounting for less than 10% of the total population of 21.4 million. According to census data, 70.2% of Sri Lankans identify as Buddhist, 12% Hindu, 9.7% Muslim, and 7.4% Christian. It is estimated that 82% of Sri Lankan Christians are Roman Catholic Tourists were also targeted in the attacks, Sri Lanka High Commissioner Gunasekera told CNN. Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A priest conducts a burial ceremony for victims of the Easter Sunday bombings in Negombo, Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, April 24. Hide Caption 1 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A woman who lost her husband and two children during the bombing at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo yells toward the grave site during a mass burial on Wednesday. Hide Caption 2 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Military personnel talk with a police officer near the site where a package, believed to be a bomb, was detonated in a controlled explosion after being discovered in a nearby restaurant in Negombo on Wednesday, April 24. Hide Caption 3 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Members of a security task force search for explosives ahead of victims' mass burials in Negombo on Wednesday. Hide Caption 4 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims On Tuesday, April 23, Harshani Sriyani weeps over the body of her daughter who was killed in the Easter Sunday bombings in Colombo. Hide Caption 5 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Funeral ribbons hang across a road leading to St. Anthony's Shrine on April 23. Hide Caption 6 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A man is supported as he follows a coffin during a mass funeral for bombing victims at St. Sebastian Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, on Tuesday, April 23. Hide Caption 7 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A soldier stands guard next to members of the clergy during a mass funeral in Negombo on Tuesday. Hide Caption 8 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Coffins are carried to a grave during the mass funeral at St. Sebastian Church on April 23. Hide Caption 9 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A woman carrying an infant runs for safety after police found a suspicious vehicle parked in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Monday, April 22, a day after several coordinated bombings across the country killed hundreds. Hide Caption 10 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Sri Lankan security forces stand at the site near St. Anthony's shrine in Colombo after they performed a controlled detonation of a suspicious van on Monday. Hide Caption 11 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Smoke rises from the area where a van exploded on Monday near St. Anthony's shrine in Colombo. Hide Caption 12 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Security personnel stand guard outside St. Anthony's Shrine on Monday, a day after the church was hit in a series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. Hide Caption 13 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Relatives weep near the coffin of 12-year-old victim Sneha Savindi, who was killed in the Easter Sunday bombing at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka. Hide Caption 14 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Police and forensics officials inspect the interior of St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo on Monday. Hide Caption 15 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Shoes and belongings of victims are collected as evidence at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo on April 22. Hide Caption 16 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A man mourns after viewing the body of a dead relative killed in the bomb explosion at St. Anthony's Church in Colombo on Sunday, April 21. Hide Caption 17 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Blood stains are seen on a statue of Jesus Christ after a bomb blast inside a church in Negombo, on Sunday. Hide Caption 18 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A woman is in tears after a deadly bomb blast at St. Anthony's Shrine in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, on Sunday. Hide Caption 19 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims Security personnel and investigators sift through debris outside Zion Church in Batticaloa. Hide Caption 20 of 39 Photos: In pictures: Sri Lanka on alert as mourners bury blast victims A man holds up a blood-stained photograph as people wait to identify the bodies of their loved ones in front of St. Anthony's Church.<doc-sep>
STR, AFP | Sri Lankan security personnel walk through debris following an explosion at St Sebastian's Church in Negombo, north of the capital Colombo, on April 21 A series of eight devastating bomb blasts ripped through high-end hotels and churches holding Easter services in Sri Lanka on Sunday, killing at least 290 people, including dozens of foreigners. Advertising Read more The powerful blasts – six in quick succession and then two more hours later – wrought devastation at sites in and around the Sri Lankan capital, including at the well-known St Anthony's Shrine, a historic Catholic Church. An AFP photographer at the scene at St Anthony's saw bodies lying on the floor, some draped with scarves and clothes. Much of the church roof was blown out in the explosion, with roof tiles, glass and splintered wood littering the floor along with pools of blood. Local TV showed damage at the Cinnamon Grand, Shangri-La and Kingsbury hotels in Colombo, which are frequented by foreign tourists. The Shangri-La's second-floor restaurant was gutted in the blast, with the ceiling and windows blown out. An improvised bomb discovered at the main airport in Colombo was defused late Sunday, police said. {{ scope.counterText }} {{ scope.legend }} © {{ scope.credits }} {{ scope.counterText }} i {{ scope.legend }} © {{ scope.credits }} Police said Monday morning the death toll had risen to at least 290 with another 500 wounded in the multiple blasts. The police also said that three officers were killed while conducting a search at a suspected safe house on the outskirts of Colombo. The occupants of the safe house apparently detonated explosives to prevent arrest. Thirteen arrests have been made, all of whom are Sri Lankans, police said. A foreign ministry official said there were 27 bodies of suspected foreign nationals, while the police said at least 35 of the dead were foreigners. One Portuguese man, three Danes, two Turks, five British nationals (two of whom had dual US citizenship), three Indians and several American and were killed, according to their respective governments. There were also Chinese and Dutch among the dead, according to media reports. Sri Lankan police at the site of the blast that hit the luxury Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo. Ishara Kodikara, AFP There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the blasts, but documents seen by AFP 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". Prime Minister Ranil Wickremsinghe acknowledged that the government had some "prior information of the attack", though ministers were not told. He said there wasn't an adequate response and there needed to be an inquiry into how the information was used. Curfew, social media blocked The Sri Lankan government imposed a nationwide curfew from 6pm to 6am and blocked Facebook and other social media, saying it needed to curtail the spread of false information and ease tension in the country of about 21 million people. "I strongly condemn the cowardly attacks on our people today," Wickremesinghe wrote in a tweet, calling on Sri Lankans to "avoid propagating unverified reports and speculation". 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. Ranil Wickremesinghe (@RW_UNP) April 21, 2019 By late Sunday, most social media services in the country appeared to be blocked, a group that monitors internet censorship said. The NetBlocks observatory said it detected an intentional nationwide blackout of popular services including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and Viber. The multiple blasts mark the worst outburst of violence in Sri Lanka since the South Asian country's bloody civil war ended a decade ago. World leaders reacted in horror to Sunday's attacks, with Pope Francis saying he stood with the victims of "such cruel violence" in his traditional Easter Mass. In a message posted on Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron said he "firmly condemned the odious acts" perpetrated on Easter Sunday, expressing France's solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka. We are deeply saddened by the terrorist attacks against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka. We firmly condemn these odious acts. We stand by the people of Sri Lanka and our thoughts go out to the loved ones of the victims on this Easter Sunday.