A powerful land mine ripped through a packed bus in northern Sri Lanka yesterday, killing at least 64 people in the worst act of violence since a 2002 ceasefire, the army said. Sri Lanka's air force responded by bombing rebel-held areas in the northeast.
The government blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for blowing up the bus crowded with commuters and schoolchildren -- spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella called it "a barbaric act" -- but the rebels, who fought for two decades to create a homeland for the country's minority Tamils, denied responsibility.
Yesterday's violence came during nearly a year of sporadic fighting that began with last summer's assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister. With the ceasefire as shaky as ever and diplomats saying relations between the government and Tigers are at a low point, Sri Lanka appeared once again on the brink of full-scale war.
Rebel commanders met quickly to map out their next moves.
"Our Central Command is discussing possible defensive measures we need to take to protect our Tamil people," senior rebel leader Seevaratnam Puleedevan told reporters from the rebel town of Kilinochchi.
He said that the air raids have left "a lot of casualties," but gave no figures.
The explosion was described as "huge" by military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe, who said it tore through the bus outside this northern town around 8am.
Pair of mines
The blast was believed to have been caused by a pair of land mines hanging from a tree, and detonated from a remote position, he said. Rigging mines to trees or bicycles is a common Tiger tactic, officials say, done so the ground does not absorb as much of the force of a blast.
The area around Kabithigollewa, which is under government control but near territory controlled by the Tigers, was frequently the scene of violence when all-out war shook the island.
"The blasts hit the middle of the bus and it overturned, trapping passengers," said Bandula Seneviratne, a Sri Lankan photographer who was among the first to reach the scene, about 210km northeast of Colombo.
A doctor at the hospital where the victims were taken, S.B. Bothota, said 15 schoolchildren were among the 64 killed. Another 78 people were wounded, he said.
At the hospital morgue, bodies of the victims were laid in rows. Some victims were relatives of a policeman killed on Monday, apparently by rebels. They were heading to the slain man's funeral when the explosion tore through their bus.
Air raids
Hours after the blast, the pro-rebel TamilNet Web site said two jets bombed areas in the north of the country. Samarasinghe confirmed the bombings, saying the air force was taking limited deterrent action.
Samarasinghe blamed the Tigers for the blast, saying their "motive is to create terror."
Police said the victims were primarily ethnic Sinhalese.
But rebel leader Puleedevan countered the army accusation, suggesting that the attack could have been "the work of forces seeking to create ethnic tension between the Sinhalese and the Tamil population."
"The Liberation Tigers condemn the attack on civilians in strongest possible terms," Puleedevan was quoted as saying by TamilNet.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fought for 20 years to carve out a separate homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east for the country's 3.2 million minority Tamils, who are largely Hindu, saying years of oppression by the majority Sinhalese Buddhists left them no other choice.
RSS