Eight British citizens are among nearly 300 people killed in bomb attacks at hotels and churches in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.
The attacks, representing the deadliest violence the South Asian island country has witnessed since a bloody civil war ended a decade ago, also saw hundreds of people injured.
Sri Lankan officials said a group of Islamic extremists under the name National Thowfeek Jamaath were behind the explosions.
The group is believed to have links with foreign terrorist networks.
The country’s defence minister Ruwan Wijewardena described the bombings as a terrorist attack by religious extremists.No group immediately claimed responsibility, but 24 people have been arrested in a series of police raids.
Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry said the bodies of at least 27 foreigners were recovered, and the dead included people from Britain, the US, India, Portugal and Turkey.
Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the UK, Manisha Gunasekera, said eight British nationals were killed in the attacks.
“As of now I think there is information on eight nationals who have lost their lives and the other numbers are of other nationals,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Gunasekera said the investigations were moving “very swiftly” but warned against taking a “linear view” on the motive of the attacks.
“It appears as if the entirety of Sri Lanka has been targeted as well as the unity and coexistence that Sri Lankans have attempted so hard to safeguard over the years.”
Prime Minister Theresa May said the massacre was “truly appalling”, and “no one should ever have to practise their faith in fear”.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “They are absolutely devastating and despicable attacks.”
Six nearly simultaneous explosions at churches and hotels killed scores of people in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.
Hours later, there were further explosions in Dehiwala and Dematagoda on the outskirts of Colombo.
The explosions collapsed ceilings and blew out windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests.
People were seen carrying the wounded out of blood-spattered pews. Authorities say 290 people were killed around 500 wounded.
Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe condemned “the cowardly attacks on our people”.
Sri Lankan TV chef Shantha Mayadunne and her London-based daughter Nisanga were among the first victims named.
They died just moments after sharing a picture of their Easter breakfast at the Shangri-La hotel.
Julian Emmanuel and his family, from Surrey, were staying at the Cinnamon Grand when the bomb went off.
He told the BBC: “We were in our room and heard a large explosion. It woke us up. There were ambulances, fire crews, police sirens.
“I came out of the room to see what’s happening, we were ushered downstairs.
“We were told there had been a bomb. Staff said some people were killed. One member of staff told me it was a suicide bomber.”
“People were being dragged out,” Bhanuka Harischandra of Colombo, a 24-year-old founder of a tech marketing company who was going to the city’s Shangri-La Hotel for a meeting when it was bombed. People didn’t know what was going on. It was panic mode. “There was blood everywhere.”
The scale of the bloodshed recalled the worst days of the nation’s 26-year civil war, in which the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from Sri Lanka, a Buddhist-majority country.
During the war, the Tigers and other rebels carried out a multitude of bombings. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.
Sri Lanka is about 70% Buddhist, with the rest of the population Muslim, Hindu or Christian.
While there have been scattered incidents of anti-Christian harassment in recent years, there has been nothing on the scale of what happened on Sunday.
There is also no history of violent Muslim militants in Sri Lanka.
However, tensions have been running high more recently between hard-line Buddhist monks and Muslims.
Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks, as did countries around the world, and Pope Francis expressed condolences at the end of his traditional Easter Sunday blessing in Rome.
British people in Sri Lanka who need help were urged to call the High Commission in Colombo on +94 11 5390639, while people in the UK worried about friends or family should call the Foreign Office on 020 7008 1500.