Sri Lanka observes 3-minute silence as death toll rises to 310 in Easter Sunday attacks
Colombo: Sri Lanka observed a nationwide three-minute silence Tuesday to pay homage to more than 300 people killed in the gruesome Easter Sunday bombings, the country's worst terror attack blamed on a local previously little-known Islamist outfit.
National flags were lowered and people bowed their heads as the silence began at 8:30 am local time, the time the first of the attacks occurred on Sunday.
"We have declared today a day of national mourning, we urge people to raise a white flag in honour of the victims," said Kamal Padmasiri, Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
He said a 3-minute silence was observed nationwide and the national flag will be flown at half-mast.
Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said the death toll in a series of devastating blasts that tore through churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka had risen to 310.
"The death toll has now gone up to 310", Gunasekera said.
Seven suicide bombers believed to be members of the National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) - carried out a series blasts that ripped through three churches and luxury hotels on Sunday, killing over 300 people and wounding more than 500 others, including 8 Indians, in the country's worst terror attack.
A string of eight blasts were reported on Sunday, including at three churches in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo's Kochchikade district during Easter services. The Shangri-La, Kingsbury and Cinnamon Grand luxury hotels, all in the capital, were also targeted.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but police have arrested 24 people - mostly members of the NIJ - in connection with the blasts.
The funerals of most of the victims at the St Sebastian's Church in Katuwapitiya, Negombo will be held this afternoon.
The office of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith said that he would be personally attending the funerals held in the predominant Catholic region in the western coastal district.
"There will be a mass funeral for 60 of the dead at the St Sebastian's Church," a spokesman said. Sri Lanks's Parliament will meet in a special session this afternoon.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and leader of the opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa will make statements on the attacks.
The curfew which was imposed at 8 pm last night was lifted at 4 am on Tuesday.
For the first time since the attack, the traffic returned to roads in Colombo where security had been heightened with the presence of troops.
The emergency regulations that would allow police and the troops sweeping powers to arrest and detain suspects came into force last night. Parliament will ratify the emergency regulations tomorrow, officials said.
The suicide bombings struck three churches and three luxury hotels Sunday in the island nation's deadliest violence since a devastating civil war ended in 2009.
The blasts shattered a decade of peace in the island nation since the end of the brutal civil war with the LTTE.
The civil war ended with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which ran a military campaign for a separate Tamil homeland in the northern and eastern provinces of the island nation for nearly 30 years.
The LTTE collapsed in 2009 after the Lankan army killed its supreme leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The war is thought to have killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people.
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Hamas accepts cease-fire proposal for Gaza, but Israel's stance still uncertain
Jerusalem, May 6: Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.
It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signalling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza's population, are sheltering.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.
An American official also said the US was still waiting to learn more about the Hamas position and whether it reflected an agreement to what had already been signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as a stance was still being formulated.
Details of the proposal have not been released. Touring the region last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Hamas to take the deal, and Egyptian officials said it called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and some Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal, they said.
