COLOMBO, 17 January 2008 — A roadside bomb tore through a Sri Lankan bus killing 25 people and wounding dozens yesterday, officials said, as a six-year cease-fire between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels formally expired.
The Ministry of Defense said a large number of schoolchildren were on the bus at the time of the blast in the central district of Moneragala, around 240 kilometers east of the capital Colombo.
However hospital officials said they were treating only four children for minor injuries, and that no children were killed.
Schools in the surrounding province of Uva were temporarily closed following the attack, which the military blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Government defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said Tigers fleeing after the attack shot dead four farmers in the area, and said the military’s aim was to eliminate shadowy rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as part of a declared plan to defeat the rebels by the end of the year.
A second blast targeted an army armored personnel carrier 20 kilometers south of the first attack, wounding three soldiers, the military said.
The bus attack, in the town of Buttala, was the latest in a series of roadside bomb attacks blamed on the rebels, who are fighting to create an independent state in the island’s north and east.
“This is a brazen demonstration to the whole world of (the Tigers’) unchanged commitment to terrorism and the absolute rejection of democracy and all norms of civilized behavior, in the pursuit of its unacceptable goal of separation, which threatens the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka,” President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a statement.
Local television broadcast footage of the bus, showing bloodstains on the floor and belongings, including plastic bags and flip-flops, strewn inside and out.
One bus passenger described hearing a firefight after the blast. “I was on my way to take my baby to the doctor. I heard a loud noise and I thought it was a bomb, so I went under the seat of the bus with my baby and we heard firing for about five minutes,” 27-year-old housewife T.M Lalani told Reuters from Buttala hospital.
“Everybody was screaming and I saw people on the ground in a bloodbath,” she added. “My leg got injured from pieces of glass. Luckily my baby did not get any injuries.” The Tigers were not immediately available for comment on the blast, which bore the hallmarks of previous rebel attacks, but routinely deny involvement.
Sri Lanka’s bourse fell 2.1 percent on the news to six-month lows, though traders said investors had been expecting violence.
